Christy Mathewson began to pitch for the New York Giants in 1901, a year in which he won twenty-one games in his first full major-league season, but the Giants finished last. John J. McGraw became the manager, and in 1905 the Giants were the national champions. In 1903, Matty had a season total of 267 strikeouts, and in 1904, he threw 16 strikeouts in a single game. In the World Series of 1905 against the Philadelphia Athletics, Matty threw three shutouts in three appearances on the mound. In 1908, he won 37 games, and over the course of his major league career he had three straight seasons when he won more than thirty games. After his right arm gave out, Matty was a player-manager for the Cincinnati Reds from 1916 to 1918, and a coach for the New York Giants after his service in World War I with the American Expeditionary Force in France. He served as president of the Boston Braves from 1923 until shortly before his death on October 7, 1925. Matty was one of the first five players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The others were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson.. The photograph is of Christy Mathewson's bust in the Cooperstown museum.

Although Mathewson set many records during his major league career, he was remembered by fans, fellow team members, and sports writers for his moral character as much as for his athleticism. In a remembrance published on October 9, 1925, in the New York Herald-Tribune, Grantland Rice, the legendary sportswriter, summarized these feelings:

"There have been many mighty pitchers. But here was a ball player with ideals, a ball player who lifted the game up in place of dragging it down. He held public faith in dark days when others were trying to destroy this faith....his character was such that he held even the respect of those who had no ideals of any sort....From the day he first walked upon the field up to his passing he set his eyes upon a certain goal along the road of honesty, cleanness, service and loyalty, and nothing could swerve him from the path. Others have been idols of a city. Here was a nation-wide idol who at no second of his career ever stepped into the mire. He walked upon clean ground from his first public appearance to the Pennsylvania grave that will hold his dust."