Cy Young

A Star in the National League

In 1890, following a year in which he played third base for the amateur Tuscarawas County team, Young turned professional. He also switched to pitching, compiling a 15-15 record with the Canton team. It was with Canton, so the story goes, that Young acquired the nickname Cyclone. Eager to impress his new boss and teammates, he claimed to have thrown a baseball against the fence, which tore off a couple of boards from the grandstand. When someone commented that the grandstand looked like a cyclone had hit it, the name stuck. In the beginning newspapers sometimes referred to Young as simply "The Cyclone." Later in 1890 Young signed a $300 contract to pitch for the National League (NL) Cleveland Spiders. He had a 9-7 record for Cleveland that season, the only pitcher on the team with a winning record. For that, and for the potential in his right arm, the Spiders, in 1891, gave Young a raise to __BODY__,400.

The late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century was truly the era of the workhorse pitcher and the strapping Young—in his prime he stood 6 feet, 2 inches and weighed 210 pounds—was no exception. In 1891 he earned every bit of the money Cleveland paid him; he pitched 423 2/3 innings, posting a 27-22 record, with a 2.85 earned run average (ERA). He also recorded two saves. What marred Young's season was that during a six-week period in August and September he won only two of his 13 decisions. He bounced back, however, to win his final six games. He followed that up with an even more spectacular year in 1892: 453 innings pitched, a 36-12 record, and an ERA of 1.93. That season he led the NL in wins, ERA, winning percentage, and shutouts.

Young's season was all the more remarkable because in the months prior to the season the rival American Association went out of business; the NL absorbed four of its teams. Since the Players League had folded two years earlier, at the start of the 1892 season there were 12 major league teams instead of 24, as there had been when three leagues competed against each other for players. Thus, the quality of Young's opposition was far better than in his rookie season.

In 1892 Cleveland finished in first place in the second half of the season, then called the Fall Season. In a championship series they played the Boston Beaneaters who had finished first in the first half, or Spring Season, and had been champions in 1891. Unfortunately for Young and Cleveland Boston proved too strong a rival. They defeated Cleveland five consecutive games in the best-of-nine format; Young started three games and posted an 0-2 record with an ERA of 3.00.

1892 was also the year that Cyclone Young's nickname was shortened to Cy. In his biography of Young, Cy Young: A Baseball Life, Reed Browning conjectured that "the consensual acceptance of 'Cy' represents both a typographic abbreviation of 'Cyclone' and a conceptual conflation of stormy speed and rustic roots." In fact, Cy was a common nickname of the time for a naïve farm boy, which Young was in the beginning of his career. On November 8, 1892, Young married Robba Miller, who had been Young's sweetheart since they were teenagers.

Prior to the 1893 season the distance from which the pitcher's back foot rested when he began his pitch was moved from 55 feet 6 inches to 60 feet 6 inches, also the angle at which the pitcher could throw toward the plate was decreased. While these changes certainly favored the batters and ended more than a few pitching careers they did not affect Young. If anything he flourished under the new rules. In all, Young pitched nine seasons for the Cleveland Spiders (1890-1898) and, with the exception of his rookie year he never won fewer than 21 games in a season during that span. He also led the NL in wins in 1895 (when he won 35 games) and finished second in 1893 with 34 victories. Young's won-loss record with the Spiders was a remarkable 241-135.

In 1899 Young came to play for the St. Louis Perfectos in a very odd, but at that time legal way. St. Louis (then called the Browns) was one of the four American Association teams absorbed by the NL. By the end of the 1890s the team had fallen on hard times and was purchased by the owners of the Cleveland Spiders, the Robison brothers, who retained their ownership of the Spiders. Since Sunday baseball was banned in Cleveland but not in St. Louis, the Robisons essentially transferred the players from one team to the other, hoping that the better Cleveland players would make them more of a profit in a the better baseball town. Thus, Young found himself no longer playing professional baseball in Ohio. Young pitched only two years in St. Louis and his record was 45-35. The 1900 team was especially disappointing. The team badly underachieved and Young himself posted a mediocre 19-19 record. After the season owner Frank Robison criticized the players, singling out Young and a few others for special criticism. Most of Young's teammates felt the criticism of him was undeserved. In fact the episode caused irreparable damage to Young's heretofore good relationship with Robison.

A New League

Complicating all of this was the rise of the American League (AL). In 1900 the Western League, a minor league, changed its name to the American League. The AL soon after announced it was making a bid for major league status. Part of the upstart league's unifying structure was that league president, Ban Johnson, held 51 percent of the stock of each club in the league. The AL then went about placing teams in four Eastern cities: Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. With eight teams in place the AL then initiated a bidding war with the NL for those established players who were not under contract. Cy Young was one of these and the Boston team made an offer to him. Meanwhile he served as the St. Louis representative to the February 1901 meeting of the Players Protective Association—an early form of player unionization.

Young signed with the Boston AL team (they were not yet named the Red Sox) in March 1901 for what has been estimated at $3,500. This figure reflects a $500 increase over his 1900 salary, but more important he was offered a three-year contract by the Boston owners rather than the one-year contract that the Robison brothers had presented. Just as important, St. Louis catcher, Lou Criger had already signed with Boston and Young and he would be reunited.

If the Robisons thought Young was past his prime, as he was 34 years old when the 1901 season began, he set out to prove them wrong. This he did by dominating the new league during his first three years with Boston. The 1901 season was one of the finest of Young's career. His record was 33-10-the 33 wins led the league. He also had the lowest ERA, 1.62, in the AL in 1901 and allowed the fewest walks per nine innings while leading the league in strikeouts. He was second in the AL in innings pitched that year with 371 1/3. He followed that up with a season that was only slightly less magnificent. In 1902 Young's record was 32-11. He again led the AL in victories, also innings pitched with 384 2/3. He was second in strikeouts and had the second fewest walks per nine innings in the league. In 1903, at age 36, Young's record was 28-9. Though he recorded five fewer victories than the previous year Young again led the league in that category. He also led the AL in innings pitched, 341 2/3, and fewest walks per nine innings.

At the end of the 1903 season the champions of the AL and the NL played what became known as the World Series. Boston won the AL pennant and faced the Pittsburgh Pirates, winners of the NL pennant. At that time the World Series was a best-of-nine format (it was permanently reduced to its present-day best-of-seven format in 1922). Young vindicated his dismal postseason performance of 11 years earlier by figuring prominently in Boston's victory in the Series. He started three games and pitched in a fourth. His record was 2-1 with an ERA of 1.85. Over the course of his first contract with Boston Young's record was an amazing 93-30, the World Series excluded. He pitched 1097 2/3 innings during which he recorded 494 strikeouts. No other pitcher had recorded more than 58 victories after reaching the age of 34. Young's record after age 34 was 232-155. (The pitcher with the most victories after age 34 was Charley Radbourn, whose record was 58-36.)

Perfect

Young was truly the toast of the town in Boston at the beginning of the 20th century. During the 1904 season the 37-year-old pitched the finest game of his fabled career. It happened in Boston on May 5, 1904, when the Philadelphia Athletics were in town. Young faced Philadelphia's ace and future Hall of Famer, Rube Waddell. It has been estimated that 10,000 people were in the stands to see the two great pitchers square off. Boston won the game 3-0, but more important Young pitched the first perfect game (in which the pitcher gives up neither a hit nor a walk) in AL history. It was also the first perfect game in the major leagues since the pitching distance had been moved back to 60 feet 6 inches. Young also set the then-record of 45 consecutive scoreless innings; and pitched 24 consecutive no-hit innings. At the end of the season Young pitched three consecutive shutouts to clinch the league pennant for Boston. Young's record in 1904 was 26-16. There was no World Series that year because, John Brush and John McGraw, the owner and manager, respectively, of the NL champion New York Giants, refused to let their team play. They still considered the AL inferior despite the fact Boston was the reigning world champion. Later Brush backed down from his unpopular position and tried to schedule a World Series in the spring of 1905 but the idea never took hold.

1904 was Young's last truly great year though he played until 1911. In 1905 he suffered through the first losing season of his career, posting a record of 18-19. In 1906 his record fell to 13-21. He did manage to bounce back his final two years with Boston: his 1907 record was 21-15 and in 1908 he went 21-11. He also pitched two nohit games in 1908—the last one nearly a perfect game. Young's record for his eight seasons in Boston was 192-109.

Following the 1908 season Young was traded to Cleveland in the AL. In 1909 his record was 19-15. In 1910 he went 7-10 and for part of the 1911 season he was 3-4. In 1911 Cleveland placed Young on waivers and the Boston Braves in the NL for whom he posted a 4-5 record selected him. His record with Cleveland during two seasons plus was 29-29. For his career he won 511 games and lost 316, both records. He also pitched a total of 7354 2/3 innings. Not surprisingly he also ranks first among pitchers in the number of games started and the number of complete games. Despite the origins of his nickname and his ability to throw hard, Young was a master of control. Fourteen times he led the league in fewest walks per nine innings, including a stretch of nine consecutive years, covering both leagues. He struck out 2,803 batters during his career. In 1937 Cy Young was voted into the baseball Hall of Fame.

When his baseball career ended Young retired to the farm he and his wife had purchased in 1904 and lived another 43 years. In 1913 Young signed to manage the Cleveland Green Sox of the Federal League. He died on November 4, 1955, in Newcomerstown, Ohio. Young played in an era before all-star teams were chosen and post-season awards distributed, but in 1955 he received a singular, posthumous honor. An award for the best pitcher in baseball was instituted and named for him. Since 1967 the Cy Young award has been given to the best pitcher in each league.

Books

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

Porter, David L., ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Sports, Greenwood Press, 1987.

Online

"Cy Young," Baseball-Reference.com http://www.baseballreference.com/y/youngcy01.shtml (January 7, 2004).