Frank Thomas

Young Notable Sports Figures
Cy Young
he’d practice by throwing balls and walnuts at a target
on his father’s barn door.
He was still a teen when he and his father moved to
Nebraska; he spent two years working as a farm hand
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. His talent caught the
attention of a minor league team in Canton, which
signed him in 1890.
The Cyclone
Young acquired his nickname right away. Worried
that his new Canton teammates were skeptical of his
abilities, he started throwing balls against a fence to
show off. “I thought I had to show my stuff,” he was
quoted as saying in the 1965 book Kings of the Diamond.
“I threw the ball so hard I tore a couple of boards
off the grandstand. One of the fellows said the stand
looked like a cyclone struck it. That’s how I got the
name that was later shortened to Cy.” The local newspaper
was calling him “Cyclone” by April 1890. (An alternate
tale, less kind, suggests that his teammates took
to calling him Cy, then a common nickname for someone
who seemed like a country hick. That may have
been part of the reason the name “Cyclone” was eventually
shortened.)
1816
Chronology
1867 Born March 29 in Gilmore, Ohio
1890 Joins Canton minor league team, gets nickname “Cyclone”
1890 Major league debut with Cleveland Spiders
1892 Leads Cleveland to fall season championship
1892 Marries Robba Miller
1895 Wins three games in Temple Cup series
1897 Pitches no-hitter against Cincinnati on September 18
1899 First season in St. Louis
1901 Joins Boston in American League
1903 Wins two games as Boston wins first modern World Series
1904 Pitches perfect game against Philadelphia A’s on May 5
1908 Third no-hitter, against New York, June 30
1909 Traded to Cleveland Naps
1911 Released by Cleveland, signs with Boston, plays last game
1912 Retires
1937 Elected to National Baseball Hall of Fame
1955 Dies at age 88
Reporters were impressed with Young’s fastball and
curve ball, and he soon became known as the best pitcher
in the Tri-State League, even though he was playing
for an awful team. In July, Young pitched a no-hitter
against McKeesport, striking out eighteen. A fierce
competition for talented players that year, brought on by
the creation of a third major league, made Young attractive
to Cleveland’s major league teams. The Cleveland
Spiders paid Canton $300 to release Young, and he
signed a contract with the Spiders that increased his
monthly salary from $60 to $75.
Young pitched his first major league game on August
6, 1890. The press had raved about the arrival of the
“Canton Cyclone,” Reed Browning recounts in his book
Cy Young: A Baseball Life, but the visiting Chicago
Colts’ player-manager, Cap Anson, is said to have taken
a look at Young and dismissed him as “just another big
farmer.” Upset over the remark, Young gave up only
three hits to the Colts, none to Anson himself. The Spiders
won 8-1. Afterward, Anson tried to offer Spiders
secretary Davis Hawley a thousand dollars to get Young
on the Colts. Hawley said no.
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 December, he was featured on the cover of the
Sporting News.. That fall, he married 21-year-old Robba
Miller, a neighbor he’d grown up with in Gilmore.