Won in the Ninth

Mathewson, Christy, 1880-1925Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 393K words
Chapters: 40

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Won in the Ninth by Christy Mathewson. Author: Mathewson, Christy, 1880-1925. Language: English. Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres. Release Date: Aug 1, 2015

Editor's review

This is a juvenile baseball novel by baseball Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, a sports-themed work among public-domain eBooks. The story revolves around a baseball game, and the title highlights the tension of a ninth-inning decider. It suits readers interested in early baseball literature who want to understand the sports narrative style of that era. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, it is easy to obtain on various devices and works well as English extensive reading material or a supplementary text for sports culture studies. Mathewson himself was a well-known figure in baseball history, and his writing carries an eyewitness immediacy that lets readers feel the atmosphere and language habits of early American baseball. Because the work is a century old, its pacing and diction differ from contemporary fiction; it is best used to learn history and practice English reading rather than for modern plot excitement. Overall, this is a lightweight, easily accessible public-domain title with both sports and cultural value.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in early baseball history and sports culture
English learners who want public-domain novels for extensive reading practice
Teachers, students, and enthusiasts studying American juvenile sports literature
Casual readers who enjoy light sports stories

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting modern fast-paced competitive fiction
Those unaccustomed to century-old English expression and narrative style
Readers with no knowledge of or interest in baseball rules and background

Reading tips

First learn the basic rules of baseball and what a ninth-inning decider means, then enter the story.
Jot down unfamiliar baseball terms and old-fashioned expressions as English-learning material.
Read alongside other early sports novels to observe differences in period narrative style.
Use the eBook search function to locate game passages and read the key innings first.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners?

Not really for absolute beginners. The work was written long ago, its vocabulary and sentence patterns carry period features, and it involves baseball terminology. It is best attempted by readers with intermediate English reading ability and a basic understanding of baseball, with a dictionary and rules explanations at hand.

Why is this book a free eBook?

It is released by Project Gutenberg, a platform dedicated to free eBooks whose copyright has entered the public domain. Mathewson's work is in the public domain, so it can be obtained legally and free of charge and read on a computer, phone, or e-reader.

Do I need to understand baseball to read this book?

Some knowledge of baseball rules makes it easier to follow the plot, especially the progress of the game and the tension of the ninth-inning decider. If you know nothing about baseball, spend a few minutes learning the basic rules and common terms before reading; comprehension will be much smoother.

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About the author

Mathewson, Christy, 1880-1925 Author

Christy Mathewson (1880–1925) was one of the representative pitchers in early twentieth-century American baseball history, and he also took up writing after his playing career. Public information is limited, so the details of his life cannot be described at length here, but the four works held in the collection show that his writing consistently centers on the game of baseball itself. Among them, Pitching in a Pinch or, Baseball from the Inside recounts, from a pitcher's perspective, the split-second decisions and tactics of play, combining first-hand experience with readable, popular narration; Won in the Ninth, Catcher Craig, and Second Base Sloan are baseball-themed novels that present players' training, teamwork, and the pressure of winning and losing through plots on and off the field. His prose is plain and straightforward, attentive to practical details and to the situations of his characters, and it both reflects the look of early American professional baseball and leaves later readers an accessible introduction to the baseball culture of the time.