by Rich Watson
Big-league baseball had changed a lot when pitcher Cy Young died in 1955. Ballparks were smaller. Home runs were more of an attraction. And players of color had entered the game, in large numbers.
Pitching—throwing the ball fast enough, and with enough movement, to make the batter miss—remained key to winning games. No one in professional baseball did it better. And that’s why, the year after he died, baseball’s highest honor for pitching was named for him.
Cy Young and his final years
The man born Denton True Young—his fastball destroyed fences, making them look as if a cyclone had hit them, hence his nickname—pitched for two Cleveland teams and two Boston teams (plus one St. Louis team) around the turn of the century, teams with names like Spiders and Americans.
Young retired in 1911 due to a sore arm, at age 45. After a brief managerial stint in another league, he returned to his native Ohio and tended a farm. Later, after his wife died, he sold the farm and moved in with friends, working random jobs and participating in baseball reunions. He entered the Hall of Fame in 1937. He died on November 4, 1955 at 88. He was buried in Peoli, Ohio.
So what was special about him?
A lot.
The dawn of the American League
Once upon a time, the National and American Leagues of Major League Baseball had distinct identities. The former had integrated quicker. For years they had faster, more exciting games due to the hustling spirit of the previous Negro League players. The latter was the first to adopt the designated hitter, a system where a position player batted for the traditionally weak-hitting pitcher. The only time the two leagues played each other was during exhibition games and the World Series.
I remember how much of a big deal it was when the two leagues met. Matchups like the All-Star Game were opportunities to see how AL pitchers like Roger Clemens would do against NL hitters like Mike Schmidt, or NL pitchers like Steve Carlton against AL hitters like Don Mattingly. Speculation on who would prevail was a huge part of the appeal because such matchups were rare. It was like wondering who’d win in a fight, Captain America or Batman.
Now, for better or worse, interleague play is common and both leagues have the DH. When the American League started in 1901, though, it kicked off a rivalry that endured for generations. Young was there for it.
Sportswriter-turned-executive Ban Johnson started the AL as a way to curb the wild-west conditions of the NL and bring fair play and cleanliness to the game. Young had been a member of the NL Cleveland Spiders and St. Louis Perfectos (later known as the Cardinals), leading his squads in wins twice, earned run average once and strikeouts once. He also threw a no-hitter.
Believed over the hill at 34 by management, Young joined the other players looking for better opportunities in the AL. He signed with the Boston Americans (later known as the Red Sox). In the AL’s first year, he went 33-10 with a 1.62 ERA and won the Triple Crown for pitchers.
Definitely not over the hill. In fact, he’d go on to win 225 games after age 34, more than anybody before or since.
Young played in the first World Series between the two leagues, in 1902. His Americans faced the Pittsburgh Pirates. He threw the first pitch in the Series and won two games. His club prevailed.
He’d pitch two more no-hitters, including a perfect game in 1904–done during a streak of 45 straight scoreless innings. After the Americans, Young finished with the team now known as the Guardians and the Boston Braves, when they were briefly called the Rustlers (ballclubs went through lots of names).
Three defining statistics
Young, a workhorse during a time when pitching dominated the game, set records that probably will never be broken, given the changes in the game today, including:
- 511 wins,
- 7,356 innings pitched, and
- 749 complete games.
Newer statistics have become important in judging the worth of a player. Managers rely on them to keep a hot pitcher from burning out too soon.
In the 2005 book 3 Nights in August by Buzz Bissinger, a three-game study of the Cardinals and Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, Bissinger notes not only the difficulty in keeping valuable pitching prospects healthy, but the pressure to keep them that way:
La Russa has seen a procession of pitchers over the years who have broken down and busted out because of arm problems and high expectation problems and personal problems and, perhaps most of all, problems making the distinction between being a thrower and being a pitcher…. The line between success and implosion is so terribly thin. Climbing a sheet of ice has more job security, as evidenced over the past thirty years by the number of number-one picks in the baseball draft who were highly touted, highly ballyhooed pitchers but flamed out without ever getting close to the majors.
Young pitched in a time when such concerns didn’t exist. Modern managers use relief pitchers not only more often but more strategically, aware of lefty-righty matchups, as well as pitch count. They juggle their rotations to compensate, thus reducing the amount of time a starter goes and how many innings he pitches.
Unless this changes, records such as Young’s will stand forever.
The Cy Young Award
In 1956, Commissioner Ford Frick instituted the Cy Young Award, given to the best pitcher in both leagues as voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America. At first only one award went to one pitcher, but later two awards were given, one in each league.
Don Newcombe of the Dodgers was the first winner. He went 27-7 with a 3.06 ERA. In 1974 Mike Marshall, another Dodger, became the first reliever to win the award.
Last year’s winners were Tarik Skubal of Detroit and Chris Sale of Atlanta.
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Also in 1955:
- The Dodgers win their one and only World Series in Brooklyn, defeating the Yankees in seven games.
- Roy Campanella wins his third National League MVP award.
- Elston Howard becomes the first black Yankee and Cub Sam Jones becomes the first black MLB pitcher to throw a no-hitter.
- The White Sox clobber the Athletics 29-6, setting a franchise record for runs in a single game.
- Pirate legend Honus Wagner dies.
Do you remember when Cy Young died? Leave a comment and let me know!
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