Remembering Matty

Last week's Bucknell meet was great, definitely one we will return to in future years should it fit into our schedule. It's a fantastic facility and it's great competition against schools we don't normally see too frequently. We tend to see the same old schools at the same old meets here in the NY/Metro area. So this was a nice change of pace.

Also, for a baseball history buff like me, going to Bucknell meant I got to pay homage to one of my favorite historical baseball figures: Christy Mathewson. The track/football complex is Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium, named in honor of the great Big Six, an original Hall of Famer and one of the best Dead Ball Era pitchers and one of the pitchers of any era in baseball history.

Kevin Donner, the Bucknell coach who graciously allowed us to come to his meet, is also a baseball history buff. He told me that the beautiful Lewisburg, Pa., campus of Bucknell was first considered to be the site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, which we all know is in Cooperstown, NY.

Just outside the stadium, there is a big gate and entrance-way that was to have served as the Hall of Fame entrance at Bucknell. It was donated by baseball in 1927 and it remains an awesome structure. It is there that Matty is buried and honored.

Coach Donner also told me something really cool about this gate. It acts as a symbolic rite of passage for Bucknell students. When they arrive as freshmen at orientation, they walk as a class through the big gates and onto the campus. When they graduate as seniors, they walk out the big gates and into the next phase of their lives.

It is an awesome and fitting tribute to the great Matty, a true role model and American hero to go along with being one of the greatest ballplayers of his and any time.