How did such a great pitcher get lost in time?

No one can doubt that it was long ago -- May 4, 1871 to be exact -- on a baseball field at Fort Wayne, Ind., where a team known as the Kekiongas played host to the Cleveland Forest Citys.

The pitcher for Fort Wayne was a 19-year-old right-hander named Bobby Mathews, who faced Deacon White, a future Hall of Famer, to open the game.

White took the first pitch for a ball. The pitch was significant because it was the first in major league history.

Mathews pitched a complete game that day, a 2-0 shutout to win the first major league game in history. As Mel Allen would have said, "How about that?"

In a 15-year pitching career, Mathews won 297 games. Yet, how many people today have even heard of him?

Jim Novak, who loves baseball's rich heritage as much as I do, was asked the following question by me. "Have you heard of William Hurlbert, Ban Johnson, Albert Spalding, Henry Chadwick and John Montgomery Ward?" Novak replied in the affirmative that all were baseball pioneers and Hall of Famers. "What about Bobby Mathews?" This one stumped him. How did Mathews get lost in the mix?

The only thing I can figure out is that when they compiled his record, they separated his National Association and National League statistics. Separately, those stats don't really warrant Hall of Fame inclusion. Together, though, they are really impressive.

In the National Association, Mathews strung up consecutive seasons of 25, 29, 42 and 29 wins for Baltimore and the New York Mutual. Mathews was a member of the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1876, the first year of the National League, and won 21 games. Later, in the American Association with the Philadelphia Athletics, he racked up three successive 30-win campaigns.

Looking at his career, Mathews pitched 69 complete games in 1875. That's about how many the entire league has these days. Mathews pitched 625 innings in that 1875 season.

No one can say that Mathews had too short a career. He did, after all, pitch in 578 games. His earned run average was 2.68 in the NA and 3.00 in the NL. Folks, this one has me stumped.

The only thing I can figure out is Mathews died way back in 1898 at the age of 46 from syphilis. Maybe it was the way he died that figured in the mix.

Or maybe it was because Mathews spent so many years in the National Association. Yes, the National Association, which began with these rich team names: Fort Wayne Kekiongas, Cleveland Forest Citys, Brooklyn Eckfords, Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Bostons, Chicago White Stockings, Troy Haymakers, Washington Olympics, Rockford Forest Citys and New York Mutuals. I wonder what fascination they had with the name Forest City in those days? And how about the Boston Bostons? I think they later became the Beaneaters.

That first pennant was lost by Chicago. On Oct. 8, the visiting Rockford team stood by and watched the ballpark burn with the rest of the city. The White Stockings were forced to finish the season on the road as the home team in Brooklyn, where they lost to Philadelphia. By losing their last three, the White Stockings began a tradition of Chicago futility except for brief periods.

In his career, Mathews pitched for Fort Wayne, Baltimore and the Mutuals in the National Association and with the New York York Giants, Cincinnati, Providence and Boston in the National League and Philadelphia in the American Association.

I keep looking at the records of the really old-timers, and from what I can glean, Mathews was every bit as good as most of them. But somehow, time has almost forgotten him. Now, a few more people have heard of him, including me.