Cy Young

Baseball Player

• Born: March 29, 1867
• Birthplace: Gilmore, Ohio
• Died: November 4, 1955
• Place of death: Newcomerstown, Ohio

Sport: Baseball

Early Life

Cy Young was born Denton True Young on March 29, 1867, in Gilmore, Ohio. His middle name was said to be the last name of a soldier who had saved his father’s life in the Civil War.

When “Dent,” as he was called in his youth, was growing up, much of the United States was agricultural. In fact, on these wide open fields, baseball began to be played. When Dent was old enough, he began working as a farmer and a rail-splitter in Gilmore, Ohio. In these fields, he first played baseball with the other farmhands.

The Road to Excellence

By 1890, Dent was a strapping 6-foot 2-inch, 210-pound twenty-three-year-old. His fastball was the talk of the county, and Dent wanted to use it in organized competition. At first, his parents felt he should remain a farmer, but reluctantly, they gave in, and Dent got a tryout with the Canton, Ohio, team in the Tri-State League.

At that tryout, Dent was first called “Cy,” although there are at least two different stories behind the nickname. According to one story, Dent reported to the Canton team in clothes so ill-fitting that he was at once branded as a hick fresh off the farm and given the name “Cyrus.” According to another story, Dent’s warm-up pitches were so powerful that they left the fence of the ballpark looking like a cyclone had hit it, and a sportswriter began calling the new pitcher “Cyclone” Young.

In mid-season, Cy pitched a no-hitter against McKeesport, striking out 18 batters. News of the game spread to the Cleveland Spiders of the National League, which paid Canton $250 for the big right-hander.

The Emerging Champion

In his first major-league game, Cy pitched a 3-hitter for Cleveland against Chicago. Cy blossomed in 1892, winning thirty-six games while losing just twelve. He also led the league in earned run average (ERA), allowing only 1.93 earned runs per game. Over the next eight seasons, Cy won an incredible 237 games, winning better than 30 games a season three times—astronomical numbers for a pitcher in any era.

Baseball was a different game in the late 1800’s from what it is today, and Cy had to adapt to a number of rule changes. For instance, in 1892, pitchers threw off a flat dirt surface 50 feet from the catcher; the following season, the distance was increased to the modern-day 60 feet, 6 inches, and a pitchers’ “mound” was allowed.

Another change that came to baseball during this time was the start of a new major league, the American League (AL), in 1901. In 1899, the Spiders had moved from Cleveland to St. Louis. The Boston team, soon to become known as the Red Sox, lured Cy, thirty-four years old, to the new league by offering more money and a cooler climate. In 1901, Cy led the league in victories, strikeouts, and ERA.

In 1903, Boston finished first in the American League and Pittsburgh was the top team in the National League. At the end of the season, the two teams agreed to play each other to see which was better, and the World Series was born. Cy, who had won the most games of any AL pitcher in each of the last three years, started three games in that best-of-nine series, losing the first game but winning the fifth and seventh to help Boston win the series, 5-3.

The following year, some believed Cy, at the age of thirty-seven, was washed up. Rube Waddell, the twenty-eight-year-old pitching star for the Philadelphia Athletics, promised he would win when the two pitched against each other. The matchup occurred on May 5, 1904, and Cy pitched a perfect game, retiring all 27 batters who faced him, as Boston won, 3-0. Cy pitched three no-hitters during his major-league career, the last on June 8, 1908, at the age of forty-one.

Cy credited his longevity to farming. He continued to swing an ax as a rail-splitter in the off-season and said his farm chores strengthened his back and legs.

In 1909, Cy was sold to Cleveland of the American League, where he played two seasons, winning nineteen games his first year there. In 1911, he went to Boston of the National League and retired at the end of the season after twenty-two years in the major leagues.

Continuing the Story

During Cy’s career, relief pitchers were not commonly used; the pitcher who started the game usually finished it. Thus, many of Cy’s records will most likely never be broken. He finished his career with more wins (511) and more losses (315) than any pitcher in baseball. He also completed more games (749) and pitched more innings (7,356) than any pitcher ever has and probably ever will. He won at least twenty games in each of fifteen seasons, and won thirty or more in five of those years.

After he retired, Cy went back to Ohio and to farming. When his wife died in 1933, he sold his land and went to live with friends who were also farmers. In 1937, Cy was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cy still loved baseball and was a frequent visitor to the ballpark at Cleveland Indians games until his death on November 4, 1955, in Newcomerstown, Ohio, at the age of eighty-eight. The next year, baseball began giving out the annual Cy Young Award for pitching excellence.

Summary

Cy Young grew up with baseball and became one of its legends. He came to the sport when both he and baseball were fresh off the farm and became one of its star players who helped make the game popular with fans. Cy was baseball’s most indestructible pitcher; he threw more innings and won more games than anyone else. His records are so secure that the name baseball chose for the prize given annually to the best pitchers in both leagues is the Cy Young Award.

Bibliography

Browning, Reed. Cy Young: A Baseball Life. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.

Coffey, Michael. Twenty-seven Men Out: Baseball’s Perfect Games. New York: Atria Books, 2005.

Romig, Ralph H. Cy Young, Baseball’s Legendary Giant. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1964.

Stout, Glenn, and Dick Johnson. Red Sox Century: The Definitive History of Baseball’s Most Storied Franchise. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Wilbert, Warren N. What Makes an Elite Pitcher? Young, Mathewson, Johnson, Alexander, Grove, Spahn, Seaver, Clemens, and Maddux. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003.