Top 106 Baseball Players: #26 - Cy Young

Cy Young

Cy Young is a name that is well known to baseball fans, though many do not know as much about the player as about the award that was named in his honor.

Young first pitched in the Major Leagues in 1890 with the Cleveland Spiders, and by his third season he was the best pitcher in the league, finishing with 36 wins, a 1.93 ERA, and 9 shutouts, all best in the league. Following that season, the pitching mound was moved back to its current distance, partially due to the speed with which he pitched.

In 1896 he led the league in strikeouts for the first time, and pitched his first no-hitter the next season. After the 1898 season, his team's owner purchased another team in St. Louis and transferred most of his best players over to his other team, first known as the Perfectos before changing to the Cardinals, but the team struggled in Young's two seasons there, and he jumped ship to the new American League and the Boston Americans when they formed in 1901.

His first season in Boston was a great one, as Young won the pitching Triple Crown with 33 wins, 158 strikeouts and a 1.62 ERA. Had the Cy Young award existed at the time, he definitely would have won it, but that season was a huge part of his legend that made the award a reality down the road.

The first World Series was held in 1903, with Young's Americans playing the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Young holds the distinction of throwing the first ever World Series pitch. Though he lost that game, he won his next 2 starts to lead them to a 5-3 series victory. He finished the series with a 1.85 ERA, and also had 3 RBI in game 5 as a batter.

In 1904, Young threw the first perfect game in AL history, and the first under current pitching rules. (When the previous 2 perfect games had been thrown, 8 balls equaled a walk.) That game was part of a longer streak of not allowing a hit, which extended to 76 batters, which is still the record today. He threw a third no-hitter in 1908, when he was 41 years old, and it stood as the record for the oldest pitcher to throw one for 82 years, when Nolan Ryan threw one at age 43.

Young is the all-time leader in many pitching categories, including wins, innings pitched, starts, and complete games, but also in runs allowed, hits allowed, and losses. The wins record is another that will probably never be broken, as he is 94 ahead of Walter Johnson, who is #2 on the list, and has more than double the total of active leader Bartolo Colon.

His pitching greatness over such a long period led to the creation of the Cy Young award in 1956, the year after he passed away. There have been many great pitchers over the years who have won that award, but very few who have ever reached the level of excellence achieved by its namesake, who is obviously one of the best baseball players of all time.