Cy Young: A Baseball Life - Hardcover

Browning, Reed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1558492623 ISBN 13: 9781558492622

Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000

Synopsis

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 pitches -- all 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.

About this title

About the Author

Reed Browning is professor of history and former provost at Kenyon College.

Reviews

Cy Young, baseball's greatest pitcher, owns one record that will never be broken: 511 career victories. Unfortunately, Young didn't also possess the larger-than-life personality of a Babe Ruth or a Ty Cobb (whose signature records have both been surpassed). Consequently, his life has largely been forgotten. History professor Browning hopes to revive Young with this chronicle of a career that straddled the centuries and saw the birth of the modern game. The problem is that his subject won't cooperate. What few pieces of correspondence the semiliterate pitcher left behind "are almost silent about his thoughts." In addition, "Young was a quiet man" with an "aversion to interviews" and a reluctance to talk about himself. That's why, from a baseball writer's point of view, "[he] was not good copy"; from a reader's point of view, the same holds true. Young's private life must remain undecipherableAthe simple life of a humble man. As for his career, Browning tries his spirited best to bring countless games to life, but with little incisive commentary from Young himself, Browning's efforts are frustrated, and the book eventually grows wearisome. Nonetheless, the author has also packed in many colorful anecdotes: for example, on the evolution of the pitcher's mound, the origins of the American League (especially the Red Sox), the history of baseball in Cleveland and the first World Series. Ultimately, even if the book doesn't post a W, it isn't a bad game to watch. 24 illustrations. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1558492623
• ISBN 13: 9781558492622
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304