C. Mathewson White Cap

Christopher "Christy" Mathewson (1880–1925), known as "Big Six" and "The Christian Gentleman," is captured here in the T206 White Border White Cap variation — one of three Mathewson poses in the set, alongside the Dark Cap and the Portrait, and the most graphically distinctive thanks to the bright headwear. Born August 12, 1880 in Factoryville, Pennsylvania, the Bucknell-educated right-hander joined the New York Giants in 1900 and pitched there through July 1916 before a brief player-manager stint with Cincinnati closed his career. He won 373 games, including 37 in 1908, and famously threw three complete-game shutouts in the 1905 World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics. His signature pitch was the fadeaway, a forerunner of what later generations would call the screwball. Lung damage from accidental gas exposure during World War I training cut his postwar life short; he died of tuberculosis October 7, 1925 in Saranac Lake, New York. He was elected in the inaugural Hall of Fame class of 1936 alongside Cobb, Wagner, Ruth, and Walter Johnson.