Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers and Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers made baseball history this week by winning the American and National League Cy Young Awards respectively. Most people know about the award voted to the best pitcher in each league, but don’t know much about the man it is named after.
If they did, they’d know that Denton True “Cy’ Young pitched his last season exactly 100 years ago in 1911 for the Boston Rustlers. He went to spring training in 1912, but asked to be released before the season started. Twenty-two years of baseball history had passed since the quiet man from Gilmore, Ohio had begun his big league career.
Going into the 1911 season Young had hinted at retiring and staying on his farm in Peoli, Ohio. His 1910 record with the Cleveland Naps had been seven wins against ten losses. Even if he felt that his arm was still sound, Young was not happy with his fielding. But when the Naps offered him a contract for 1911 Young signed and headed to spring training.
He pitched in seven games for the Naps going 3-4 before his chapter in baseball history seemed over as Cleveland released him in mid season. Young returned to the farm fully expecting to never pitch again. He was wrong. In August, he got a letter from Boston asking him to pitch for the Rustlers. It would be a homecoming of sorts as Young had pitched for the Americans/Red Sox from 1901 to 1908.
In Boston, Young would start in 11 games and complete eight of them. Included in these was a September 7th complete game 1-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies and a rookie pitcher destined to make a little baseball history of his own named Grover Cleveland Alexander.
Young would get his final major league victory on September 22 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Fittingly, it was a complete game 1-0 victory. He would pitch two more games for the Rustlers and finish with a record of 4-5. His final appearance was on October 6th at Brooklyn’s Washington Park where he lost to the Dodgers in front of 250 fans.
From there it was off to Peoli, the farm and a place in baseball history as the man whom baseball’s highest pitching honor is named after.