WWI and After
In 1918, Mathewson enlisted in the United States Army for World War I. He served overseas as a Captain in the newly formed Chemical Service along with Ty Cobb. While in France, during a training exercise he was accidentally gassed and subsequently developed tuberculosis, which more easily infects lungs that have been damaged by chemical gases. Although he returned to serve as a coach for the Giants from 1919–1921, he spent a good portion of that time in Saranac Lake fighting the illness, initially at the Trudeau Sanitorium, and later in a house that he had built. In 1923, Mathewson got back into professional baseball when he served as part-time president of the Boston Braves.
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Famous quotes containing the words and after:
“We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)