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Denton True "Cy" Young (March 29, 1867 – November 4, 1955) was an American baseball player who pitched for five different major league teams from 1890 to 1911. He established numerous professional pitching records during his 22-year career in the majors, some of which have stood for a century. Young retired with 511 career wins, the most wins in MLB history and 94 more wins than Walter Johnson, who is second on the list.

In honor of Young's contributions to Major League Baseball, MLB created the Cy Young Award, an annual award given to the pitcher voted the most effective in each of the two leagues. The Baseball Hall of Fame elected Young in 1937. During his professional career, Young won at least 30 games in a season five times, with ten other seasons of 20+ wins. He also pitched three no-hitters, including the first perfect game of baseball's "modern era."

In addition to wins, Young holds the MLB records for most career innings pitched (7,355), for most career games started (815), and for most complete games (749). He also retired with 316 losses the most in MLB history. The only other pitcher with more than 300 career losses was Pud Galvin. Young had 76 career shutouts, fourth most in history.

In 1999, 88 years after his final major league appearance and 44 years after his death, editors at The Sporting News ranked Cy Young 14th on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". That same year, baseball fans named Young to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Early life

Denton Young was born in Gilmore, Ohio, a farming community located in the eastern portion of Ohio. Raised on one of these local farms, Young went by the name Dent Young in his early years. Also known from time to time as "Farmer Young" or "Farmboy Young", Young stopped his formal education after he completed the sixth grade.

Professional career

Young began his professional career in 1889 with the Canton, Ohio team of the Tri-State League, a professional minor league. Young impressed during his tryout; years later, he recalled, "I almost tore the boards off the grandstand with my fast ball." The catcher who warmed up Young gave him the nickname "Cyclone" in reference to the speed of his fastball. Reporters then shortened the name to "Cy" and that was the nickname he used the rest of his life.

Franchises in the National League, a major professional sports league, wanted the best players available to them. Therefor, in 1890, Young signed for $500 with the Cleveland Spiders, who'd moved up from the American Association to the National League the previous year. In Young's one year with the Canton team, he won 15 games and lost 15 games.

On August 6, 1890, in his first major league start, Young pitched a three-hit shutout.. While Young was on the Spiders, Chief Zimmer was his catcher more often than any other player. Bill James, a noted baseball statistician, estimated that the Young-Zimmer battery appeared more times than any other battery in baseball history.

Early on, Young established himself as one of the harder throwing pitchers in the sport. In the abscense of radar guns, it is difficult to say just how hard Young actually threw. However, James wrote that Zimmer often put a piece of beefsteak inside his baseball glove to protect his catching hand from Young's fastball. Young continued to perform at a high level and on the last day of the 1890 season, he won both games of a doubleheader. By the end of his rookie season, Young was one of the teams best pitchers.

Two-years after his debut in the National League, the league moved the pitcher's mound from fifty feet (where it had been since 1881) to sixty feet and six inches. In an excerpt from the book The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, sports journalist Rob Neyer wrote that the speed with which pitchers like Cy Young, Amos Rusie, and Jouett Meekin threw was the impetus that caused the move.

In 1895, the Spiders faced the Baltimore Orioles in the Temple Cup, a precursor to the World Series. Young won three games in the series; consequently, Cleveland won the Temple Cup four games to one.

In July, 1896, Young lost a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning when Ed Delahanty of the Philadelphia Athletics hit a single. On September 18, 1897, Young pitched the first no-hitter of his career in a game against the Cincinatti Reds. Although Young did not walk a batter, the Spiders committed four errors while on defense. One of the errors had originally been ruled a hit, but the Cleveland third baseman sent a note to the press box after the eighth inning, saying he had made an error, and the ruling was changed. Young later said that despite his teammate's gesture, he considered the game to be a one-hitter.

In 1899, Frank Robison, the Spiders owner, bought the St. Louis Browns.. He then transfered most of the Spiders players to the Browns, and vice versa. Cy Young was one of the players transfered to the Perfectos and he spent the 1899 and 1900 seasons in St. Louis.

In 1901, Young left St. Louis and joined the American League's Boston Americans, the team he would be with until 1909. In his first year in the American League, Young led the league in wins, strikeouts and ERA. That season, he also pitched the first perfect game in American League history.

In February, 1902, before the start of the baseball season, Young served as a pitching coach at Harvard University.

In 1903 the Boston Americans played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first modern World Series. Young, who started Game One, threw the first pitch in World Series history. In that game, the Pirates scored 4 runs in the first inning and Young lost the game. Young preformed better in subsequent games and won his next two starts. He also drove in three runs in Game Five. Young finished the series with a 2-1 record and a 1.85 ERA in four appearances. Young's two wins helped the Americans defeat the Pirates five games to three games.

On May 5, 1904, the Americans faced the Philadelphia Athletics. The game was notable for at least two reasons. First, the starting pitchers for the game were Cy Young and Rube Waddell; both pitchers are now members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Second, Cy Young retired every batter he faced. Before Young, only two pitchers before completed what is now known as a Perfect Game. During the 1880 season, and before the start of the MLB's modern era, Lee Richmond and John Ward pitched perfect games within five days of each other. However, between 1880 and 1901, baseball made significant changes in the rules. In 1880, the pitcher's mound was 15 feet closer to the batter, eight balls equaled a walk, and pitchers were required to throw side-armed. One year later, on July 4, 1905, Waddell got a measure of revenge when he and beat Young and the Americans 4-2 in a 20-inning matchup. Young pitched 13 consecutive scoreless innings before he gave up a of unearned runs in the final inning. Throughout the entire game, Young did not walk any batter. He was later quoted: "For my part, I think it was the greatest game of ball I ever took part in."

On June 30, 1908, Young pitched the third no-hitter of his career. Two months later, on August 13, 1908, the league named the day "Cy Young Day". No American League games were played on that day and a group of All-Stars from the league's other teams gathered in Boston to play against Young and the Red Sox.

Young was traded back to Cleveland before the 1909 season, this time to the Cleveland Naps of the American League. He split 1911, his final year, between the Naps and the Boston Rustlers.

On September 22, 1911, Young shut out the Pittsburgh Pirates and their pitcher Babe Adams 1-0, for his last career victory. Two weeks later, Young pitched his 906th and final game. He faced eight batters and gave up one triple, four singles and three doubles.

For fourteen consecutive years, from 1893 through 1906, Young led his league in fewest walks per nine innings thirteen times, and finished second the other season. Only twice in his 22-year career did Young finish lower than 6th in the category.

For nineteen consecutive years, from 1891 through 1909, Cy Young was in his leagues' top ten for innings pitched; in fourteen of the seasons, he was in the top five. Not until 1900, a decade into his career, did Young pitch two consecutive incomplete games.

Young's legacy

Young retired after the 1911 season with 511 career wins. His win total set the record for most career wins by a pitcher. At the time, Pud Galvin had the second most career wins with 364. Walter Johnson, then in his fourth season, finished his career with 417 wins and is now second on the list. However, Johnson broke Young's career record for strikeouts.

Cy Young's career spanned several decades and is seen as a bridge from baseball's earliest days to its modern era; he pitched against stars such as Cap Anson, already an established player when the National League was first formed in 1876, as well as against Eddie Collins, who played until 1930. In fact, Young did not wear a glove until his sixth.

Young led his leagues in wins five times (1892, 1895, and 1901-1903), finishing second twice. His career high was 36 in 1892. He had fifteen seasons with twenty or more wins, two more than the runners-up, Christy Mathewson and Warren Spahn. Young won two ERA titles during his career, in 1892 (1.93) and in 1901 (1.62), and was three times the runner-up. Young's earned run average was below 2.00 six times, but this was not uncommon during the dead ball era. Young threw over 400 innings in each of his first four full seasons, but did not lead his league until 1902. He had over 40 complete games in nine seasons. Young also led his league in strikeouts twice (with 140 in 1896, and 158 in 1901), and in shutouts nine times.

Although the WHIP ratio was not calculated until well after Young's death, his control was well-known during his lifetime; Young was the retroactive league leader in this category seven times, and was second or third another seven times.

The first Cy Young Award was voted on in 1956, and was given to Brooklyn's Don Newcombe. Originally, it was a single award covering the whole of baseball. The honor was divided into two Cy Young Awards in 1967, one for each league.

Cy Young is tied with Roger Clemens for the most career wins by a Boston Red Sox pitcher. They each won 192 games while with the franchise.

Young was saluted in the poem "Lineup for Yesterday" by Ogden Nash:
Y is for Young,
The magnificent Cy;
People batted against him,
But I never knew why.

See also

• Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
• List of MLB individual streaks

References and notes

1. ^ "Cy Young's Perfect Game". columbia.edu. {{cite web}}: Text "accessdate-2007-06-23" ignored (help)
2. Although listed as a perfect game as early as Ernest J. Lanigan's 1922 work, Cyclopedia of Baseball (p.83-84), and listed as a perfect game in record books since, Major League Baseball did not formalize the definition of a "perfect game" until 1991.
3. ^ "Cy Young Biography". cmgworldwide.com. Retrieved 2007-06-14.
4. ^ "BA Dugout". baseball-almanac.com. Retrieved 2007-06-23.
5. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/deaths/cy_young_obituary.shtml
6. "The Ballplayers - Cy Young". baseballlibrary.com. Retrieved 2007-06-19.
7. "1890 Chronology". baseballlibrary.com. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
8. ^ The New Bill James Historical Abstract, Simon & Schuster, 2001, pgs. 410-411
9. Neyer, Rob (2004). The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers. Fireside. p. 496. ISBN 0-7432-6158-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
10. "1896 Chronology". baseballlibrary.com. Retrieved 2007-06-23.
11. ^ "1897 Chronology". baseballlibrary.com. Retrieved 2007-06-23.
12. The Browns were also renamed the Perfectos prior to the 1899 Season
13. "The Perfectos". wcnet.org. Retrieved 2007-06-23.
14. Although not an actual award, many baseball fans and experts call a pitcher who leads his league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA the Triple Crown winner.
15. "HofF profile". baseballhalloffame.org. Retrieved 2007-06-23.
16. "Waddell vs Young". philadelphiaathletics.org. Retrieved 2007-06-23.
17. "Cy Young Day". brainyhistory.com. Retrieved 2006-11-11.
18. "Boston Red Sox All-Time Leaders". mlb.com. Retrieved 2007-06-25.

External links

• Career statistics from Baseball Reference
• Cy Young managerial career statistics at Baseball-Reference.com
• Cy Young at the Baseball Hall of Fame
• cmgworldwide.com official homepage

• Articles needing cleanup from June 2007
• Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from June 2007
• Misplaced Pages pages needing cleanup from June 2007
• 1867 births
• 1955 deaths
• 19th century baseball players
• 300 win club
• American League ERA champions
• American League Pitching Triple Crown winners
• American League strikeout champions
• Baseball Hall of Fame
• Baseball player-managers
• Boston Americans players
• Boston Somersets players
• Boston Pilgrims players
• Boston Red Sox managers
• Boston Red Sox players
• Boston Rustlers players
• Cleveland Naps players
• Cleveland Spiders players
• Major League Baseball pitchers who have pitched a perfect game
• Major League Baseball pitchers who have pitched a no-hitter
• Major league players from Ohio
• Major league pitchers
• National League ERA champions
• National League strikeout champions
• St. Louis Perfectos players