JB Manheim

This Never Happened: The Mystery Behind the Death of Christy Mathewson

This Never Happened is based on two little known, but apparently authentic, military documents from World War I that call into question the established history surrounding Christy Mathewson's exposure to poison gas in a training accident in France and his subsequent death. The documents, illustrated in the book, are records of a company of several future Hall of Famers -- Cobb, Wagner, Chance and others -- who were training on the handling of chemical weapons in Georgia in the summer of 1918. The Problem: This is at variance with the delivered history of Mathewson's experience, and presents a set of facts that have been entirely omitted from any known histories or biographies, not only of Mathewson, but of any of the players involved. And that is only the beginning of the mystery.

What if in actuality, the novel asks, Mathewson's assignment to France was a mere ruse, a feint designed to draw attention away from events that, if revealed, could prove detrimental to the national war effort, and embarrassing to the Army and to Baseball? What if Baseball has continued to cover up these events to this day? At the very least, the two documents in question are highly suggestive of this or some similar version of reality.

This Never Happened offers one possible scenario that accounts for a seeming inconsistency in the historical record, an account that is admittedly fictional. But the inconsistency itself -- and the gap in the record -- is real, and the question the book ultimately raises is: If this never happened, what did? Baseball historians, among others, will find that this work of "fiction" poses an interesting and real question.