September 23, 1996

Stagestruck

MATTY

by Peter Filichia

The Best One-Man Show in New York is Eddie Frierson’s Matty, about erstwhile Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson. In answer to Emory’s question in The Boys In The Band — of “Think the Giants are gonna win the pennant this year?” — the answer was almost always, “Yes,” when Mathewson was pitching during the early 1900s. As the hurler, Frierson is endearing, charming, sincere, butch, and deserves as many praiseworthy adjectives as Mathewson had victories (373). Even the most baseball-phobic of the stagestruck would have a great time at this show. For they’d be interested in Mathewson’s reminiscences about George M. Cohan (he was an espcially big fan of his “Life’s A Funny Proposition, After All”). Or that Mathewson co-authored a Broadway play, The Girl and the Pennant. See Matty at the Lamb’s, where, as it turns out, one of Mathewson’s stories actually took place.

I could go on.