When Was The Best At His Best?

When a pitcher piles up 511 wins, 749 complete games, 76 shutouts, 2,803 strike outs, and a 2.63 ERA in a 22 year career, it’s mighty hard to determine which season was his best. This is an especially daunting task when that pitcher is none other than the crown jewel of hurlers, the namesake of possibly the most prestigious award in all of baseball, the indomitable Cy Young.

You can take his 1892 performance with Cleveland, where he won 36 games and pitched a mind-boggling 453 innings. His ERA was a microscopic 1.93 and he fanned 168 batters. But he was a fiery and muscular 25-year-old with scarcely an idea of what he had just accomplished. Therefore, how can I bow to mere statistics? It’s simply too easy to shield myself with the numbers alone.

The same can be said of Cy’s output in 1895, also with Cleveland. Young, now 28, notched 35 wins against only 10 losses. But he wasn’t the utterly dominant pitcher he was just three years prior. In fact, he allowed his ERA to balloon (well, for Cy) to 3.26 by the end of that season…and he had a good squad to back him up.

Let’s fast forward a few years to 1901, Cy’s debut season with the Boston Americans of the AL. Now, 34 years of age, the crafty Young threw 371 innings, won 33 games and shrunk his ERA back down to a nearly invisible 1.62. OK, so now we’re getting somewhere. We’re starting to see what this man was truly made of.
Although Cy was very good in 1901, in my eyes this season wasn’t good enough to be considered his “best.” There was just something missing.
 
Let’s jump ahead again to the season…the year of 1908. It was a very forgettable one for Boston (now the Red Sox), who finished four games under .500 and in 5^th place. But Cy Young logged a performance which rivals that of any pitcher in baseball history. 

Of Boston’s 75 wins, 21 of them were owned by Young despite the shaky team he had behind him that year. He only lost 11 games while pitching 299 innings. He struck out 150 batters against only 37 walks, and he allowed (get this!) only a single home run the entire season. Young reduced his ERA to a career low of 1.26 and even tossed his third career no-hitter in a game against New York on June 30.

But none of these statistics are what really move me to decree 1908 as Cy Young’s landmark season on the mound. The most impressive statistic was not one bred by baseball at all. It was one bred by nature. Everything he accomplished in ’08 took place inside the pudgy body of a 41-year-old man. And yes, I think it’s pretty safe to say performance enhancers weren’t at work here, people. I gotta be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure they even had ice back then.

What this man was able to accomplish at such a ripe age simply defies nature. It puts things in perspective by reminding us, as we begin to formulate some early preferences for this year’s award winners, why Mr. Young’s name adorns such a valuable piece of hardware over a hundred years later. And it’ll still be the same a hundred years after that.

Now that you’ve had a chance to crunch some of the numbers, which of Cy Young’s illustrious seasons do you love most?

Ten Most Important Firsts in Baseball History

C.G. Morelli

When someone takes the initiative to do something new, the result is usually one that leaves a lasting impact.

The game of baseball is no stranger to this statement. It has been witnessing players, coaches, managers, and even fans doing “new” things within the confines of its ballparks for nearly 200 years.

But some of those once rare firsts became much, much more.  They were transformed into permanent fixtures of the game, and their existence has had a hand in literally shaping the sport as we see it today.

Here, we pay tribute to the ten most important firsts in baseball history.  

10. The First Batter to Hit 500 Home Runs

On August 11, 1929 the great Babe Ruth launched a towering home run into the right field stands off of Willis Hudlin of the Indians. He had already been the first player to hit 300, and then 400, homeruns. But this, the 500^th jack of his career, did more than just set a record. It set the bar for all wannabe Hall of Famers in that department.

9. The First Team to Employ Scouts

The quality of play was a little hit or miss for professional baseball in its early days. That is until Aaron Champion, president of the Cincinatti Red Stockings, became determined to find the best talent in the nation for his 1869 team. He compiled a network of unpaid scouts, consisting of old friends, sporting goods salesmen, old coaches, and retired players, who combed the land for baseball gems. The result was a resounding championship victory for the Red Stockings that season and the use of scouts in baseball for the rest of its life span.

8. The First Player to Become Professional

While playing for the Amateur Eckfords, a man by the name of Albert Reach received a peculiar letter. It offered him $25 in expense money to join the Philadelphia Athletics ball club for the 1865 season. Up to this point it was unheard of to receive pay in exchange for play, but once Reach made his news public and proclaimed himself a “professional” in the game of baseball, everyone wanted to be paid to play. It was a long way off, but this paltry $25 contract paved the way for the million dollar versions we see today.

7. The First Player’s Union

Many would point to Marvin Miller, who headed the MLBPA in 1966, as the first leader of a real player’s union. But the first union, known as The Brotherhood, was actually started by John Montgomery Ward and Timothy Keefe back in 1885. The Brotherhood focused mainly on disputes arising from league suspensions and voting, but their work form the foundation and served as a model for future MLBPA successes.

6. The First Pitcher to Throw a Curveball

Some people credit Bobby Matthews, a pitcher with Cincinatti in the 1880’s with 297 career wins, with throwing the world’s first curveball. Some say it was Hall of Famer Candy Cummings who created his version of the curve while tossing clam shells into the ocean on a New England beach. Whoever it was, the introduction of breaking pitches to the game has had a major impact. To give you an idea of just how devastating the curveball and its followers have been, I can only quote an anonymous rookie from baseball lore who once said, “Mom, I’ll be home soon. They started throwing curveballs.”

5. The First Designated Hitter

The idea was first proposed by Connie Mack back in 1905, but didn’t come to fruition until Opening Day 1973, when Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees officially became the first player to ever bat in the lineup as a DH. That paved the way for guys who can’t run or catch to always have a place in the game. Congratulations, Edgar Martinez.

4. The First Cork-Centered Baseball

Before 1910, you’d have a better chance of getting struck by lightning then of seeing a hitter launch a hand-sewn, yarn-centered baseball out of the park. But that all changed with the introduction of the cushion-cork center. Now, when you walk the outfield concourse at any ballpark in the league, it feels like you’ve been caught in a hail storm.

3. The First Game Played at Night

Most people point to a game played in Cincinnati in 1935. But the first game of baseball ever played under artificial lights actually took place in Hull, Massachusetts between two rival department store teams way back in 1880. It’s hard not to recognize the dependence modern baseball has developed on the night game. Sure, day games are great, probably even preferable. But, the MLB brings in the vast majority of it revenue from the wallets of hard-working fans who can’t just skip out of the office every afternoon at 1:35 to catch a game. Simply stated, without night baseball MLB could not operate.

2. The First Modern World Series

Ending a bitter feud, the owners of the National and American leagues agreed to hold the first World Series in 1903 between the Pirates and Red Sox. Boston came back to win the nine game series by swiping the last four games. Cy Young and Bill Dineen contributed legendary pitching performances in the series. But what was more important was the introduction of a true world championship series in the sport and an event that attracted the nation’s interest like none had ever done before it.

1. The First Televised Game

Nothing beats a day at the ballpark, but it’s tough to get out there all the time. That’s the trouble baseball faced before 1939. But on August 26 of that year, WXBS in Brooklyn broadcast the first televised games in professional baseball history. The legendary Red Barber called the doubleheader between the Dodgers and Reds, and the broadcast was a resounding success. It immediately spawned The Game of the Week, which laid the ground work for the multimedia giant MLB is today. Bringing the game into everyone’s living room allowed not only Americans, but fans around the world to enjoy our nation’s pastime.

The Foxx Who Found His Way

By: C.G. Morelli

Jimmie-

Would you be interested in becoming a professional ball player? If you are, contact me.

Signed,

Frank Baker

It was fitting the Hall of Fame career of slugging first baseman Jimmie Foxx began with this hastily scribbled message on the back of a penny postcard from one home run legend to another in the making.

He was only 16 years old at the time, but the young track star and baseball phenom had at least one notable fan keeping a particularly critical eye on him from the stands at Foxx’s Maryland high school games.

The eye belonged to one Home Run Baker, a former Philly A’s slugger turned Eastern League manager. He knew the young Foxx had the athleticism, the build, and just the right amount of stupidity to make a splash in the bigs. And, boy, could that kid hit the ball a country mile.

Baker quickly received a reply to his postcard and Foxx began, in 1924, a short-lived minor league career under his tutelage. I say short-lived because it lasted just 76 games. That’s all it took for the Foxx to hit .296, mash 10 homers, and draw a lot of interest from teams in the bigs.

Both the Yanks and the A’s became heavy suitors for Foxx after that ’24 campaign. Naturally, Baker steered his young project in the direction of his own mentor, Connie Mack, in Philadelphia.

Foxx spent the tail end of the ’24 season sitting inches from Mack on the bench and learning what the Tall Tactician referred to as the “finer points” of the game. After that, Foxx bounced around the A’s system for the next few years and by1929, at the much more prominent age of 21, “Double X” was finally unveiled as Mack’s everyday first baseman.

The wait would prove to be more than worth it.

The next few years were a blur of statistical achievements for Foxx. From ’29-’31, he and slugger Al Simmons combined for 192 home runs in leading Philly to three straight World Series. He won two MVP awards in consecutive years by smashing 58 homers and driving in 169 runs in ’32, and by earning the Triple Crown in ’33 with 48 taters, 163 RBI, and a .358 batting average. He would hit more than 35 homers and drive in more than 125 runs in each of the next seven seasons with the A’s and Red Sox, and would pick up an unprecedented third MVP award in 1938.

When all was said and done and the sun began to set on a 20 Major League year career, Jimmie Foxx had sent 534 baseballs into the cheap seats (that was 2^nd to only the great Babe Ruth at the time) and maintained a .325 batting average. He was a unanimous selection into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1951, just six years after his official retirement.

But all the numbers and accolades and serious home run power aside, Jimmie was just a regular Joe. He was a guy you might see down at the end of the bar after a game sipping a beer, munching on stale peanuts, and mulling over a second match of darts. He was a farmer’s boy from rural Maryland who could probably 3-in-1 a tractor faster than he could round the bases. He was a fresh-faced 16-year-old with a penny postcard from his idol in hand and a slack-jawed, half-amazed look on his face.

And then he was a Hall of Famer.