Bobby Mathews
Robert T. Mathews was an American right-handed professional baseball pitcher who played in the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, the National League of Major League Baseball and the American Association for twenty years beginning in the late 1860s. He is credited as being one of the inventors of the spitball pitch, in each of three major leagues, which was rediscovered or reintroduced to the major leagues after he died. He is also credited with the first legal pitch which broke away from the batter. He is listed at and, which is small for a pro athlete even in his time, when the average height of an American male in the mid-19th century was.
Career
Mathews was born in 1851, in Baltimore, Maryland, and he played as a teenager with the Maryland club of that city, and he made the team a dangerous one. Mathews began his career at the age of 16 for the Marylands of Baltimore in 1868. A year later, he moved to the senior club, and the following year the club declared themselves professional, resulting in the creation of the National Association of Base Ball Players. On August 19, he made his first ever start in the league against the Orientals of New York, winning 28–15. For the 1871 season, he and some other Maryland players signed with the Fort Wayne Kekiongas. On May 4, 1871, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he pitched a shutout in the inaugural game of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, the first professional league.Over his 16-year career, he had 297 wins, 248 losses, 525 complete games, with a career earned run average of 2.86. He had 1,528 strikeouts compared with 532 walks. He won 20 games 8 times, including 42 in 1874 with the New York Mutuals of the National Association, and is the only player to win 50 games or to pitch 100 games in each of three major leagues.