Cy Young
Denton True Young was a pre-eminent
baseball pitcher during the 1890s and 1900s. His nickname "Cy" is short for "
Cyclone" and because his fastball was reported to be blindingly fast.
He was born in Gilmore, Ohio, a tiny village near
Newcomerstown, Ohio where Young was later raised. He also died in Newcomerstown, where the local park bears his name and a
memorial to the pitcher.
Quotations
A pitcher's got to be good and he's got to be lucky to get a no hit game.
Gosh, all a kid has to do these days is spit straight and he gets forty-thousand dollars to sign.
More Quotes >>
Encyclopedia
Denton True Young was a pre-eminent
baseball pitcher during the 1890s and 1900s. His nickname "Cy" is short for "
Cyclone" and because his fastball was reported to be blindingly fast.
He was born in Gilmore, Ohio, a tiny village near
Newcomerstown, Ohio where Young was later raised. He also died in Newcomerstown, where the local park bears his name and a
memorial to the pitcher.
Biography
Young is generally considered one of the best pitchers of all time. Not only is he a member of the
Baseball Hall of Fame , but in his honor, the annual award given to the best
major league pitcher of the year in each league, is named Cy Young Award. From 1956, the first full season after Young's death, until 1966, the award was given to the best pitcher in baseball. Starting in 1967, it was given to the best in each league.
Young set career records for wins and complete games, 511 and 749 respectively, which will almost certainly never be matched under current conditions. Today, most seasons produce few pitchers with more than 20 wins, at which pace a pitcher would have to pitch for more than 25 years to surpass the record. His complete games record will probably never be broken due to the development of relief pitching. Young's great longevity means he also holds the record for the most career losses, 316, despite winning 62% of his decisions. His unreachable total was echoed one day when, as he told a reporter many years after his retirement, a man walked up to him, seemed to recognize him, and asked, "Did you used to play baseball?" Young told the reporter that he told the man, "Mister, I won more games than you'll ever see."
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Young began his major league career in 1890 with the Cleveland Spiders, allowing three hits in his debut. He acquired prominence rapidly. Young was one of the few star hurlers to maintain his level of success after the pitching mound was moved back to the current distance of 60 feet 6 inches from home plate in 1893. He maintained that level for over two decades, playing for the
St. Louis Perfectos in 1899 and 1900 . The Cleveland and St. Louis ownership had essentially swapped teams by trading all the players and neither Young nor his wife were comfortable in St Louis. In 1901, he jumped to the new
American League and joined the
Boston Americans, for whom he played through 1908. In his first AL season, Young recorded a pitching Triple Crown.
He retired after the 1911 season, following 2 seasons with the
Cleveland Naps and a year split between the Naps and the
Boston Rustlers. His
arm was as strong as ever, but, as the somewhat portly pitcher told an
interviewer, he could not field bunts as well as he once could, and "when the third baseman has to do my work for me, it's time to quit." He retired with 511 wins, which was then 147 more wins than the runner-up,
Pud Galvin, and which today remains almost 100 more than any other pitcher ever.
Young pitched a perfect game on May 5, 1904 in Boston, against
Philadelphia. In later years, he considered this game his greatest day in baseball. It was the centerpiece of a sterling pitching streak that resulted in the records for most consecutive scoreless innings, and for most consecutive no-hit innings ; the latter record still stands. he also had two other no-hitters in his career.
Young's longevity is nearly unique – the injury rate caused by pitching conditions at the turn of the century limited even the most talented to pitching careers that rarely lasted a single decade, let alone two. Pitchers regularly pitched entire games, there being no specialized relievers, and good pitchers were used hard. No modern pitcher ever pitches the number of innings many managed in those days. Only
Nolan Ryan,
Tommy John, and perhaps
Satchel Paige primarily in the
Negro Leagues have significantly surpassed Young's number of years pitched. On the other hand, it must be noted that pitchers of that era were expected to complete their games; in consequence, they paced themselves throughout the game and seldom threw as many hard pitches in the early and middle innings as today's pitchers. There was also little danger of
home runs being hit and a pitcher could frequently simply throw the pitch down the center of the plate and let the batter put the ball in play. These circumstances enabled the better pitchers of the day to reach very high totals of complete games and innings pitched and of games won. Between 1891 and 1896, Young averaged 415 innings per season. His record 749 complete games is essentially unapproachable.
In 1993, Northeastern University unveiled a statue of Young outside one of its athletic complexes, the Cabot Center. The statue stands at roughly the spot where stood the pitcher's mound of the
Huntington Avenue Grounds, the home field of the Red Sox in Young's time.
In 1999, 88 years after his final major league appearance and 44 years after his death, he ranked Number 14 on
The Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, even though half of his career took place in the 19th century.
Career statistics
| W | L | ERA | G | GS | CG | SHO | SV | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO |
| 511 | 316 | 2.63 | 906 | 815 | 749 | 76 | 17 | 7354.7 | 7,092 | 2,147 | 138 | 1,217 | 2,803 |
Hitting statistics
| G | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | TB | SH | HBP |
| 918 | 2960 | 325 | 623 | 87 | 36 | 18 | 290 | 29 | --- | 81 | --- | .210 | --- | .281 | 834 | --- | 10 |
Young predates statistics such as on-base percentage, strike-outs, sac hits and caught stealingTrivia notes
- Due to his prolific number of inning pitched and the fact that there was no designated hitter in the league at that time, Young also holds several records for hitting by a pitcher. His career marks of 2960 at bats, 623 hits and 834 total bases are the most for any pitcher. In 1903 he went 44 for 137 including a home run. He only allowed 6 home runs as a pitcher that year.
- The last seven batters Young faced in his career hit a triple, three singles and three doubles. He was relieved after those seven consecutive hits on October 6, 1911 and retired after the season.
- Young pitched in the first game of the first World Series, on October 1, 1903. He lost the first game 7-3 to Pittsburgh, but Boston would come back to win 5 games to 3, with Young winning two.
- Young was honored in August 1908 on a special day set aside for him, when all American League action stopped and a group of American League All-Stars gathered in Boston to play against Young and the Red Sox. He was deeply moved by the gesture, and was recognized by the city and the league for his contributions to baseball.
- Young, a farmer by background and at heart, performed farming chores and chopping wood during the offseason to keep his arm fresh. He refused to toss many warmup pitches, afraid they would use up his arm. After he retired, Young retreated back to Ohio to live with farmers and in the country.
See also
External links
- career stats
- Profile on HOF homepage
