Background

Ethnicity: Cy Young's father, McKinzie Young, Jr., was a German American.

Cy Young was born on March 29, 1867 in Gilmore, Ohio, United States. He was the eldest of five children born to McKinzie Young, a farmer, and Nancy Mottmiller, a homemaker. Young had four siblings: Jesse Carlton, Alonzo, Ella, and Anthony.

Education

Young was raised on a farm in eastern Ohio, leaving school after sixth grade. He and his brothers quickly took to the game of baseball, which became popular throughout the country in the 1870s. They'd travel up to twenty miles, probably on foot or horseback, to play. Young's strong arm made him a natural pitcher early on; he'd practice by throwing balls and walnuts at a target on his father's barn door.

Cy was still a teen when he and his father moved to Nebraska; he spent two years working as a farmhand and playing in semi-pro baseball games on Saturdays. In 1887, father and son moved back to Ohio. Young spent two more years playing semi-pro ball, pitching and playing second base in 1889 for a team in New Athens that won its local championship.

Career

Young pitched his first major league game on August 6, 1890. He gave up only three hits to the Colts. The Spiders won 8-1.

By the end of 1890, Young had amassed a record of 9-7, respectable for a rookie. In 1891, he was Cleveland's winningest pitcher, with a 27-20 record, despite a slump toward the end of the year. He was a bright spot on the Spiders, who finished below .500 both years. The next year, Young proved to be the best pitcher in the National League, winning thirty-six games and losing only eleven. That year, the league split its schedule into two seasons, and the Spiders won the Fall Series pennant race, led by Young, who went 21-3. Young won the first game of the championship series against Boston, the spring champs, but the Spiders lost the rest of the games.

In 1893, to generate more offense, baseball owners increased the distance between the pitcher and home plate by five feet to the current 60 feet, 6 inches. The change ended the careers of many pitchers, who found their pitches ineffective once batters had more time to see them, or who threw too hard and wore out their arms. Young was one of the few pitchers who did as well after the change as before. His thirty-two wins in 1893 were the second-highest in the league. His 1894 record of 25-22 was decent, though weighed down by an end-of-season slump. In 1895, his thirty-five wins led the league, and the Spiders finished in second place. In the post-season Temple Cup championship, Young posted three wins as the Spiders beat the first-place Baltimore Orioles, four games to one.

Young was one of three pitchers who dominated the 1890s, along with Kid Nichols and Amos Rusie. His statistics dropped a bit in the late part of the decade as the Spiders' fortunes declined, but he still turned in his first major-league no-hitter in 1897, a 6-0 victory against Cincinnati.

At the end of 1898, after the Spiders suffered from falling attendance and a dispute with Cleveland authorities over playing home games on Sundays, team owner Frank Robison moved Young and all the Spiders' other top players to his other team, the St. Louis Cardinals. Young compiled a record of 26-16 in St. Louis in 1899, but the Cardinals finished fifth in the league. In 1900, at the age of 33, Young had a mediocre year, with a 19-18 record. Speculation spread that his career was almost over.

When the American League declared itself a major league in 1901, Young left St. Louis and signed with the Boston Pilgrims, who offered him several hundred dollars more than the National League's salary cap of $2,400. Young dispelled the talk that he was washed up, and became one of the new league's biggest stars. He led the league in 1901 with thirty-three wins, 158 strikeouts, and an earned run average of 1.62. For the next two years, he also led the A.L. in wins. In 1903, he pitched three straight 1-0 shutouts, including the game that clinched the pennant for Boston. That year, Boston played Pittsburgh, the National League champions, in the first modern World Series. Young lost the first game of the series, but won the fifth and the seventh, and Boston went on to win the series, five games to three.

In 1904, he was just as good. He pitched the first perfect game in the 1900s on May 5, beating the Philadelphia A's 3-0. It was part of twenty-three consecutive hitless innings, still a record: six innings in two relief appearances, the perfect game, and the first six innings of the next game he pitched. He shut out Boston's opponents ten times that year, including three toward the end of the pennant race with New York, which Boston won on the last game of the season.

The Pilgrims slipped from contention for a few years, and Young's record suffered. In 1905, he struck out 208 batters, the most of his career, but his record was only 18-19. His performance dropped off for a couple of years, but in 1908, at the age of forty-one, he posted a 21-11 record and an ERA of 1.26 - a career-best - and pitched his third no-hitter, beating the New York Highlanders 8-0 on June 30.

Boston traded Young to the Cleveland Naps (who later became the Indians) before the 1909 season began. He won nineteen games that year, but by 1910 his age was finally overtaking his famous stamina. After spending most of his career in great shape, he'd developed a paunch. He started only twenty games and won only seven. Cleveland released him in August 1911, and he signed with Boston. Late in the year, he pitched against Philadelphia's rookie, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and lost 1-0 in twelve innings. He still came to spring training in 1912, but batters were bunting to reach base against him, since his portly figure made it hard for him to field. He retired before the season started.

Young went back to his farm in tiny Peoli, Ohio, near Newcomerstown. He stayed close to baseball all his life, going to several Indians games a year and often showing up at old-timers' events. When Young turned eighty, Cleveland Indians' owner Bill Veeck invited him and the entire population of Newcomerstown - about a thousand people - to an Indians game to celebrate.

Achievements

• 

  Young's achievements have made him an immortal name in baseball, even as other stars of his time disappear into obscurity. He won 511 games during his tenure in baseball, almost 100 more than any other pitcher in history. He recorded 30 victories on five occasions and won 20-or-more games 16 times.
  
  Young's best season was in 1901 when he led in strikeouts (158), wins (33) and ERA (1.62). It was the first year of the American League and he set the bar high, winning its pitching Triple Crown.
  
  Cy Young still holds the records for most career innings pitched with 7,356, games started with 815 and complete games with 749. He is the fourth all-time with 76 career shutouts. He led his league in victories on five occasions: in 1892, 1895, and from 1901 to 1903. In 1892, Cy reached a career-high in wins with 36. He led the league in ERA twice with a 1.93 in 1892 and a 1.62 in 1901 and was second three times in the same category.
  
  Young was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937. In 1956, the Cy Young Award was created to honor the best pitcher in Major League Baseball for each season. In 1999, 88 years after his final major league appearance and 44 years after his death, editors at The Sporting News ranked Young 14th on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players." In the same year, he was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

Politics

In 1916, Cy Young ran for county treasurer in Tuscarawas County.

Views

Quotations: "A pitcher's got to be good and he's got to be lucky to get a no-hit game."

"All us Youngs could throw. I used to kill squirrels with a stone when I was a kid, and my granddad once killed a turkey buzzard on the fly with a rock."

"Gosh, all a kid has to do these days is spit straight and he gets forty-thousand dollars to sign."

"His trouble is he takes life too seriously. (Ty) Cobb is going at it too hard."

"I thought I had to show all my stuff and I almost tore the boards of the grandstand with my fastball."

"One of the fellows called me Cyclone, but finally shortened it to 'Cy' and it's been that ever since."

"Too many pitchers, that's all, there are just too many pitchers. Ten or twelve on a team. Don't see how any of them get enough work. Four starting pitchers and one relief man ought to be enough. Pitch 'em every three days and you'd find they'd get control and good, strong arms."

Personality

Cy Young was a vegetarian.

Physical Characteristics: Young's strength gave him a stamina few other pitchers had. He was one of the league's strongest men. Every year, when baseball season was over, he'd go back to his farm to milk the cows and chop wood. He claimed he never had a sore arm. Early in his career, Young was a wild thrower, but over the years he acquired more and more control and walked fewer and fewer batters. He had a great fastball and he could fool hitters too.

Cy Young was 6 ft 2 inches (188 cm) tall and weighed 210 lb (95 kg).

Young died of a heart attack.

Quotes from others about the person

• Cap Anson once told to Spiders' manager Gus Schmelz: "He's (Cy Young) too green to do your club much good, but I believe if I taught him what I know, I might make a pitcher out of him in a couple of years. He's not worth it now, but I'm willing to give you a $1,000 for him."

Interests

• Sport & Clubs

  baseball

Connections

Cy Young was married to his childhood sweetheart, Roba Miller. The couple had no children.

Father:

McKinzie Young

(born 1843 - died 1928)

Mother:

Nancy (Mottmiller) Young

(1847 - 1915)

Brother:

Alonzo Young

(born July 1870 - died 1957)

Brother:

Jesse Carlton Young

(born October 1868 - died 1937)

Brother:

Anthony Young

(born August 1874)

Sister:

Ella Young

(born August 1872 - died 1956)

late spouse:

Roba Miller

(August 29, 1871 - January 25, 1933)

Friend:

Ruth Benedum

Friend:

John Benedum

References

• Cy Young: Baseball's Legendary Giant A book by Ralph H. Romig.
  1964
• Cy Young A biography of a great baseball pitcher, Cy Young, who still holds the record for most innings pitched, most complete games, and most losses.
  1992
• Cy Young: A Baseball Life In this book, Reed Browning re-creates the life of Denton True "Cyclone" Young and places his story in the context of a rapidly changing turn-of-the-century America.
  2000
• Cy Young: The Baseball Life and Career A book by Lew Freedman.
  2020
• Cy Young: An American Baseball Hero Scott H. Longert uses Young's life story to introduce middle-grade readers to the game, explaining balls, strikes, and outs in an easy-to-understand way. Longert narrates each season and each milestone game with an enthusiastic play-by-play that is sure to draw readers into the excitement on the field and in the crowd, fostering a better understanding of and a passion for baseball.
  2020