Cy Young was so good that Major League Baseball named its annual award for the best pitcher in the game after him.
Cy Young was one in a million. He may even have been one in a billion. The right-handed pitcher, who was born Denton True Young, picked up his great baseball nickname in the minor leagues when his catcher compared the sound of his fastball to that of a passing cyclone.
Young made his Major League debut for the now defunct Cleveland Spiders of the National League on August 6, 1890. He allowed only three hits and pitched a complete game shutout for his first career win. It was the beginning of something very special.
Cy Young's Early Career in the National League
In his first three seasons, Young won 72 games and posted an earned run average of 2.76. During those years, however, the pitching mound was just 50 feet away from home plate. Prior to the 1893 season, the National League decided to move the mound back to a distance of sixty-feet six-inches in the hopes of generating more offense and drawing larger crowds. That move adversely affected the great majority of pitchers, and the League ERA climbed more than a full point from 1982 to 1893. While Young's ERA did jump that year, he still won 34 games, which was the best in baseball.
As the decade rolled on, Cy Young piled up wins faster than Blutarsky piled up cheeseburgers on his cafeteria tray in Animal House. In his first 9 seasons, Young won 241 games for the Spiders, an average of 27 wins per season. Then, in a transaction that had never occurred before, and has never occurred since, the Spiders and the St. Louis Perfectos traded their entire rosters for one another. That's right. Every Spider became a Perfecto and every Perfecto became a Spider.
Young pitched two seasons in St. Louis, and picked up 45 more games. The team, however, finished in fifth place and drew poorly at the gate. The team's owner refused Young's request for a raise before the 1901 season, claiming that the franchise was too financially strapped to give its best pitcher a bump in pay.
A New Team League in a New League
On January 28, 1901, a sportswriter and minor league baseball executive named Ban Johnson announced that he was forming a new major league, called the American League, and informed all existing professional ball players that they were welcome to join. Cy Young jumped at the chance. He signed with the new American League franchise in Boston, a team that was originally called the Boston Americans, but later changed its name to the Boston Red Sox.
The First World Series
During his first three years in Boston, Young went 93-30 with a 1.92 ERA. After the 1903 season, the Americans, who had won their league, faced off against the National League champion Pittsburgh Pirates in the very first World Series.
Young started the first game for Boston. He got shelled, giving up four runs in the first inning and ultimately losing the game 7-3. After that initial loss, things got a lot better for both the Americans and Young. The big righty won game 5 and game 7, throwing two complete games and surrendering just three earned runs in 18 innings. Boston won the Series, the first of four they would win in a fifteen year period.
The End of a Career and the Beginning of a Tradition
Young pitched for Boston until the end of the 1908 season, and then was traded to the Cleveland Naps, where he pitched for three more years. Cleveland released Young in August of 1911, and then he played the last two months of his career with the Boston Rustlers (later re-named the Braves) of the National League.
When all was said and done, Young had 511 wins (the most ever), 313 losses (also the most), 793 complete games (most), a 2.63 ERA and 2,803 strikeouts. He was inducted into Baseball's Hall of Fame in 1937 along with Tris Speaker, Ban Johnson and Nap Lajoie.
Cy Young passed away on November 4, 1955. That winter, baseball commissioner Ford Frick announced the creation of a new award that would be given annually to baseball's best pitcher. It was to be named the Cy Young Award, after the winningest pitcher in the game's history.
The first winner of the Cy Young Award was Don Newcombe of the Brooklyn Dodgers. From 1956 through 1966, one award was given each season to the best pitcher in both leagues. Beginning in 1967 and continuing to the present, however, the award has only been given to the one top pitcher in baseball each year. To receive a Cy Yound Award could conceivably be baseball's top individual honor.
