num_pages: 0
description: He was the winner of 511 major league baseball games nearly a hundred more than any other pitcher. He threw three no-hitters including the first perfect game in the new American League. He was among the original twelve players inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame and his name is now attached to the game's most prestigious pitching award. Yet for all his accomplishments Cy Young remains to most baseball fans a legendary but little known figure. 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. Born in rural Ohio the son of a Civil War veteran Young learned his trade at a time when only underhand pitching was permitted. When he began his professional career in 1890 pitchers wore no gloves and stood five feet closer to the batter than they do today. By the time he retired in 1911 the game of baseball had evolved into its modern form and claimed unquestioned status as America's national pastime. As Browning shows Young's extraordinary mastery of his craft owed much to his ability to adapt to the changing nature of the game. Endowed with an exceptional fastball he gradually developed a wide array of deliveries and pitchesall of which he could throw with astonishing control. Yet his success can also be attributed at least in part to the rustic values of loyalty hard work and fair play that he embraced and embodied and for which he became renowned among baseball fans of his day.
language: English
title: Cy Young: A Baseball Life
publisher: University of Massachusetts Press