Frank Merriwell and Matty

The New York Call (Socialist) has a sporting page that would do credit to many a more powerful journal. Last week The Call compared Christy Mathewson, newly-elected president of the Boston Braves, to Frank Merriwell, hero of school boy fiction.

" Like ' Merriwell,' Matty was a football star in college. He was even greater in this capacity than as a baseball player at Bucknell. He was rated the best punter and drop kicker in the East. And, like Merriwell, Matty was a pitcher.

" No man living could duplicate his feat of pitching three out of five games in the 1905 world series and winning all three of them by shutting out the Athletics and holding them to 14 hits. Merriwell might do that in fiction.

" Then came the war, and, like Merriwell, Matty enlisted and went to France. Flu and gas brought on tuberculosis. Big Six was pronounced dying. Thirteen months in bed did not daunt his spirit. Neither did he weaken in the rest of his fight. Like Frank Merriwell in a similar position, he won."