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MATTY: an evening with Christy Mathewson

November 21 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

The World Series may be over, but you can keep the homeruns coming with a special weekend of Eddie Frierson’s internationally acclaimed MATTY: An evening with Christie Mathewson, for all ages! What better way to gear up for Little Leage World Series as the baseball season shifts into high gear for the final stretch.

Written and performed by Eddie Frierson. Directed by Kerrigan Mahan. Includes a post-show sodas-and-Cracker-Jacks reception with “Matty.”

“MATTY” is the life story of Christy Mathewson, legendary hall-of-fame pitcher for the New York Giants (1900 to 1916), gentleman, philosopher and first true American hero who inspired a whole generation of fans to make baseball America’s pastime. Besides his ballpark records, still among the most impressive ever posted, he was an author of books for boys, toured in vaudeville, made a motion picture, and was a war hero, a coach, a sportswriter and very likely the first major sports figure to be a product spokesperson.

Frierson, who researched and developed the play, is also a college-educated all-American ballplayer. A baseball scholarship brought him to UCLA to pitch for the Bruins. While there he also pursued a degree in theatre and, as he says, realizing that he would never be a hall-of-famer, bypassed a professional baseball career in order to pursue acting. Staying close to his athletic roots after graduation, he was the head baseball coach at Santa Monica High School while looking for the perfect vehicle to launch his acting career. He found that vehicle with the Christy Matthewson story, spending twelve years researching and developing it into “Matty,” which had one of its first public performances at Santa Monica Playhouse in 1989.

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