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Denton True Young (March 29, 1867 – November 4, 1955) was an American baseball pitcher during the 1890s and 1900s. The Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Young in 1937 and he won one championship in 1903 as a member of the Boston Americans. An accomplished athlete, Young won the 1901 AL Triple Crown for Pitchers. The annual award given for the pitcher of the year in each league is named the Cy Young Award. Young played twenty-two years of professional baseball. He set the records for most wins all-time, most innings pitched all-time, most games started all-time, and most complete games all-time. His longevity also allowed him to set the record for the most career losses, despite winning 62% of his decisions. (He was one of two pitchers to lose 300 games; the other was Jim "Pud" Galvin, a 19th-Century pitcher.) His nickname Cy, shortened from Cyclone, was a reference to the speed of his fastball.

Later life & baseball career

Cy Young began his major league career in 1890 with the Cleveland Spiders after grauduating from Marian Central Catholic High School in Woodstock,IL. He allowed three hits in his debut. In 1893, the pitching mound was placed 60 feet 6 inches from home plate. He was one of the few pitchers whose statistical performance did not suffer as a consequence of the move.

In 1899, the Spiders and the St. Louis Perfectos essentially swapped teams by trading rosters. He played for St. Louis in 1899 and 1900, although by 1900, they were renamed and became the Cardinals.

In 1901, he left St. Louis and moved to the American League, which was elevated to Major League status that year. He joined the Boston Americans and spent the next seven seasons with the franchise. In his first season with the Americans, Young earned the AL Triple Crown for Pitchers when he lead the league with 33 wins, 158 strike outs, and a 1.62 ERA.

In 1903, the Americans played the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. Young pitched in the first game on October 1, 1903. He lost the game 7-3, but Boston won the series five games to three. Young finished the series with a 2-1 record and a 1.83 ERA.

Young pitched a perfect game on May 5, 1904 in Boston, against the Philadelphia Athletics. It was the first perfect game in American League history. It was the centerpiece of a sterling pitching streak. During that streak Young set records for the most consecutive scoreless innings pitched and for the most consecutive innings without allowing a hit; the latter record still stands at twenty-four innings. He also had two other no-hitters in his career. Between 1891 and 1896, Young averaged 415 innings per season and he still holds the record for complete games with 749.

Young was honored on August 13, 1908. 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 spent his penultimate year with the Cleveland Naps in 1910. He split 1911, his final year, between the Naps and the Boston Rustlers. In his final game, the last seven batters Young faced hit combined to hit one triple, three singles and three doubles. He retired after the season with 511 career wins. This was 147 more wins than then runner-up, Pud Galvin. Currently, Walter Johnson is second on the list with 417 wins. 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."

When Fernando Valenzuela was presented with the Cy Young Award, he commented that he had never heard of Cy Young, but said that Young had to have been quite famous himself to have an award named for him.

Young was immortalized in the poem "Lineup for Yesterday" by Ogden Nash thus:

Y is for Young,
The magnificent Cy;
People batted against him,
But I never knew why.

In 1993, Northeastern University unveiled a statue of Young outside the Cabot Center, one of its athletic complexes. The statue stands near the spot of the pitcher's mound from 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. A memorial to Cy Young was erected in 1955 in Newcomerstown, Ohio just off Interstate 77.

Career statistics

Year Ag Tm  Lg  W   L   G   GS  CG SHO  GF SV   IP     H    R   ER   HR  BB   SO  HBP  WP  BFP  IBB  BK  ERA *lgERA *ERA+ WHIP
1890 23 CLV NL   9   7  17  16  16   0   1  0  147.7  145   87   57   6   30   39   5   7   607       0  3.47  3.56  103 1.185
1891 24 CLV NL  27  22  55  46  43   0   8  2  423.7  431  244  134   4  140  147  11  12  1830       0  2.85  3.44  121 1.348
1892 25 CLV NL  36  12  53  49  48   9   4  0  453.0  363  158   97   8  118  168   8  13  1826       0  1.93  3.38  176 1.062
1893 26 CLV NL  34  16  53  46  42   1   7  1  422.7  442  230  158  10  103  102  10  14  1774       0  3.36  4.89  145 1.289
1894 27 CLV NL  26  21  52  47  44   2   5  1  408.7  488  265  179  19  106  108   6   4  1825       0  3.94  5.47  139 1.454
1895 28 CLV NL  35  10  47  40  36   4   7  0  369.7  363  177  134  10   75  121   8   6  1563       0  3.26  4.97  152 1.185
1896 29 CLV NL  28  15  51  46  42   5   4  3  414.3  477  214  149   7   62  140  10  10  1781       0  3.24  4.53  140 1.301
1897 30 CLV NL  21  19  46  38  35   2   7  0  333.7  391  189  141   7   49   88   9  14  1423       0  3.80  4.48  118 1.319
1898 31 CLV NL  25  13  46  41  40   1   5  0  377.7  387  167  106   6   41  101   9   9  1554       0  2.53  3.60  143 1.133
1899 32 STL NL  26  16  44  42  40   4   2  1  369.3  368  173  106  10   44  111   6   6  1541       1  2.58  3.96  153 1.116
1900 33 STL NL  19  19  41  35  32   4   6  0  321.3  337  144  107   7   36  115   4   7  1325       1  3.00  3.62  121 1.161
1901 34 BOS AL  33  10  43  41  38   5   2  0  371.3  324  112   67   6   37  158   8   2  1466       0  1.62  3.52  216 0.972
1902 35 BOS AL  32  11  45  43  41   3   1  0  384.7  350  136   92   6   53  160  13   3  1527       0  2.15  3.57  166 1.048
1903 36 BOS AL  28   9  40  35  34   7   5  2  341.7  294  115   79   6   37  176   9   5  1335       0  2.08  3.02  145 0.969
1904 37 BOS AL  26  16  43  41  40  10   2  1  380.0  327  104   83   6   29  200   4   4  1475       0  1.97  2.67  136 0.937
1905 38 BOS AL  18  19  38  33  31   4   5  0  320.7  248   99   65   3   30  210  10   6  1238       0  1.82  2.70  148 0.867
1906 39 BOS AL  13  21  39  34  28   0   4  2  287.7  288  137  102   3   25  140   8   5  1150       1  3.19  2.74   86 1.088
1907 40 BOS AL  21  15  43  37  33   6   5  2  343.3  286  101   76   3   51  147   7   6  1328       0  1.99  2.57  129 0.982
1908 41 BOS AL  21  11  36  33  30   3   3  2  299.0  230   68   42   1   37  150   2   4  1143       0  1.26  2.46  194 0.893
1909 42 CLE AL  19  15  35  34  30   3   1  0  295.0  267  110   74   4   59  109   8   6  1172       0  2.26  2.54  113 1.105
1910 43 CLE AL   7  10  21  20  14   1   0  0  163.3  149   62   46   0   27   58   4   7   638       0  2.53  2.59  102 1.078
1911 44 TOT      7   9  18  18  12   2   0  0  126.3  137   75   53   6   28   55   4   6   537       0  3.78  3.68   97 1.306
22 Yr WL% .618 511 316 906 815 749  76  84 17 7354.7 7092 3167 2147 138 1217 2803 163 156 30058       3  2.63  3.62  138 1.130

See also

• Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame
• Top 100 winning pitchers of all time
• List of MLB individual streaks

References

1. This is the current distance from home plate to the pitching mound.
2. See the Cleveland Spiders article for details.
3. Cy Young Perfect Game Box Score, baseball-almanac.com
4. "Cy Young Day". brainyhistory.com. Retrieved 2006-11-11.

External links

• Baseball Hall of Fame
• Career statistics from Baseball Reference

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