The GREAT PITCHER CHRISTY MATHEWSON AND MY UNCLE! A UNIQUE CONNECTION!

Welcome fellow Steemians and fans of baseball history.
My Uncle Sam Gonotsky, and there is a fair amount of info on him, Wikipedia and more, was considerred by experts as perhaps the greatest checker player America ever produced. Born in what was Russia in 1902, he came to America with his dad (my Grandfather) around 1906.
Sam was not a well young man and died in Detroit in 1929 of tuberculosis.

Checkers in those days received more publicity then today. There were tounaments vs. Russians and the British etc. and newspapers carried the results, kind of like Chess today and Bobby Fisher's famed matches a number of years back.

Enter Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants! The star pitcher and Hall of Famer was a fine checker player and became an official of the American Checker Federation. In the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown New York on display along with glove and uniform is his box of Checkers that my uncle Sam had to have used! When in New York, Mathewson often had my uncle as a guest so he could play with the "Great Gonotsky". FACT.
photo: family of Sam Gonotsky

Photo: compliments Jim Thompson

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