Matthew B. Rivers - Pitcher, Sacaton, Arizona

Arguably, the best baseball played in Arizona during World War II occurred at the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC), in a wartime city known as "Rivers, Arizona." This community was the site of a War Relocation Authority (WRA) camp that held more than 13,000 Japanese Americans, unjustly incarcerated by their own government solely because of their ethnicity.

The WRA named the town "Rivers" in honor of Mathew B. Rivers—the name under which he enlisted—who was the first soldier from Arizona killed in World War I. He died in action on May 28, 1918, during the Battle of Cantigny in France, a pivotal moment in the Allied campaign against Germany.

Today, he is more widely remembered by his O'odham name, Mathew B. Juan. Born in Sacaton, Arizona, on April 22, 1892, as Mateo Bennett Juan, he's a celebrated hero of the Akimel O'odham people of the GRIC, the State of Arizona and the United States. Though best known for his military sacrifice, Juan was also a standout athlete—excelling in baseball, football, and horseback riding—before his untimely death.

In a poignant twist of history, the wartime city named in his honor would also become home to the highest-caliber baseball played in Arizona during the war—at Block 28 Field, later known as Zenimura Field, in Rivers.

Below is a recently discovered article from June 1918 that highlights his athletic accomplishments.

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INDIAN DIES IN FRANCE IN ARMY OF HIS UNCLE SAM

MESA. June 28. – Matthew. B. Rivers of Sacaton lies upon the battlefield of France, dead in the cause of world freedom and because as a loyal American, he was among the first to volunteer in response to the call to arms. 

Yesterday morning there came into the Mesa office of the Republican of a Young Pima Indian and told the story of the dead man's patriotism. Rivers, or as his real name, was “Matthew B. Juan” was a full blood Pima Indian. 

He was educated at Sherman Institute, the noted Indian school in California. He was an athlete and one of the star pitchers of the Indian nine, being known to baseball fans as" "Lucky Slim." The writer remembers him on the diamond at Orange, California, when the game was at its tensest moment, standing in the box as unmoved, and apparently unconcerned as though nothing was happening, then in a second the long sinewy frame would tighten into steel-like toughness and the ball would flash past a perplexed batter. 

When the war broke out he volunteered in Texas and went at once to a training camp. He was on the Tuscania when the ship was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland and was among the survivors. When the Indians of Sacaton heard of the ship's loss and the foul attack as they considered it, upon one of their own blood, it aroused the most vigorous patriotism and they showed it by going over the top on the Liberty loan and war stamp purchases.

Rivers is the first Arizonan to give his life to his country, and when his friend said that yesterday he added: "If you put anything in the paper about my friend, tell the people that 20 boys from Camp Kearny, all Indians, have just started for France, and tell them too," here he paused and for once the Indian stoicism lost itself in a glow of tribal pride in the soldier dead "Tell them that the fighting spirit of Matthew Rivers will live long in the hearts of the Pima Indian people.

Source: The Arizona Republican, Phoenix, AZ, June 28, 1918, 8.

Image: WWI Registration Card of Mathew B. Juan, aka Mathew B. Rivers.

Main Image: Ballplayer: Mathew B. Rivers, © 2025 Kaizen Otoko Atarashi Studio. Portions created with AI assistance. All rights reserved.