Baseball History Daily

In 1909 the Cleveland Naps traded pitchers Charlie Chech, Jack Ryan and $12,500 to the Boston Red Sox for Cy Young;  Young would turn 42-years-old before the beginning of the season.

Young was happy with the trade and told The Cleveland News:

“I’m glad to get back to the city where I started my career in 1890.  The fans there like me.  I think so anyway.  I believed they pulled for me there when I pitched against their own team.  I will give (Napoleon) Lajoie all I have and I think I’m good for several years.”

Cy Young

Addie Joss, the Naps ace, was also happy about the trade:

“Not only has Cleveland secured one of the best pitchers in the game today, but at the same time has added to the club a man who has done much for the good of baseball, and who is honored and respected everywhere he has ever played.  I have always contended, and always will, that Cy is the greatest pitcher the game has ever produced.”

Elmer Ellsworth Bates, the sports editor of The Cleveland Press, told some stories about the Indians new pitcher.

Ellsworth said a visitor to Young’s farm in Paoli, Pennsylvania asked the pitcher which of his then 478 victories did he “recall with the most satisfaction.”

“’The first game I ever pitched for Cleveland, back in 1890 (an 8 to 1 victory August 6),’ replied Old Cy, unhesitatingly.  ‘I doubt if a base ball crowd ever looked on a more typical rube than I appeared to be that day in a makeshift uniform six or seven sizes too small.  I didn’t have much money then, but I would not have lost that game to Chicago for the prettiest $1,000 bill ever printed.”

Bates said Young was “probably the most modest ‘big man’” in the game:

“At the Colonial (Hotel in Cleveland) one day last summer a young man took a chair next to the great pitcher and began paying him fulsome praise.

“’You are the swiftest pitcher I ever saw,’ he said.

“’Then,’ said Old Cy.  ‘I guess you never saw Amos Rusie.  My fastball looks like a slow freight trying to keep up with the Twentieth Century Limited Express compared to Rusie’s.’

“’But your slow ball is a peach.’

“’Young man,’ remarked Old Cy, gravely.  ‘If I could pitch the slow ball Eddie Beatin, the old Cleveland twirler, used to hand up to the batters I’d let them knock $1,000 a year off my salary.”

Bates also said it was “a matter of record” that Young was unaware he had pitched a perfect game against Connie Mack’s  Philadelphia Athletics on May 5, 1904:

“’I knew Connie’s boys hadn’t made a hit,’ said Old Cy the next day, but I couldn’t understand why the crowd was making such a demonstration.’

“’Well you’ve done it,’ said (manager and third baseman) Jimmy Collins, as we started for the dressing room after the crowd had let me go.’

“’Done what, Jimmy?’ I asked.  ‘Pitched a no-hit game?’

“’Better than that; not a man reached first.’

“’Then I knew what the racket was about.’”

Tags: Addie Joss, Amos Rusie, Charlie Chech, Chicago Colts, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Naps, Connie Mack, Cy Young, Ed Beatin, Elmer Bates, Jack Ryan, Jimmy Collins, Philadelphia Athletics