Cy Young

Cy Young was an American Major League Baseball pitcher whose 22-year career across 1890–1911 produced 511 career wins (an MLB all-time record that remains continuously unbroken), 7,356 career innings pitched (an all-time record that remains continuously unbroken), and 749 career complete games (an all-time record that remains continuously unbroken) — making him the defining pitcher of late-19th and early-20th-century American Major League Baseball. He was born Denton True Young on March 29, 1867, in Gilmore, Ohio. His father McKinzie Young Jr. was an Ohio farmer and his mother Nancy Mottmiller was a homemaker.

His Ohio rural upbringing produced his baseball nickname "Cyclone Young" — abbreviated to "Cy" — from his 1890 minor-league tryout fastball performance for the Canton, Ohio team. His 1890 MLB debut with the Cleveland Spiders of the National League launched his 22-year MLB career. His 1890–1898 Cleveland Spiders career produced 234 wins and his May 4, 1894 single-game performance against the Cincinnati Reds.

His 1901 transfer to the Boston Americans of the new American League — produced by AL founder Ban Johnson's 1901 cross-league free-agent recruitment — launched his eight-year Boston Americans career across 1901–1908. His 1903 World Series performance — across the inaugural 1903 modern World Series between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates — produced his five complete-game appearances and his series-deciding Boston-Americans 5-3 series win. His May 5, 1904 perfect game against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds — the first perfect game of the 20th century — produced his American baseball historical recognition.

His subsequent 1909–1911 career across the Cleveland Naps and Boston Rustlers produced his later 75 additional wins. His November 4, 1911 retirement — at age 44 — concluded his 22-year MLB career with 511 wins. He died on November 4, 1955, at age 88, on his Tuscarawas County, Ohio farm. The 1956 establishment of the Cy Young Award — annually awarded since 1956 to the best MLB pitcher of each season (split into separate American League and National League awards from 1967 onward) — produced his 20th-century baseball-pitching honor.

His name Cy began as a baseball-career nickname (the abbreviated form of "Cyclone"). Cy has been a rare but enduring American boys' name across the 20th century.