Less than a year before Cy Young’s death in November 1955, a United Press reporter—Haskell Short—visited Newcomerstown, Ohio to get Young’s opinion of the game. Young said:
“I’d like modern baseball a great deal more if there were no relief pitchers.”
Cy Young
Short said Young “shifted his weight in his big, easy rocking chair,” as the two spoke. While Young had his issues with the use of pitchers, “I wouldn’t want to criticize the game as it is played today because I think baseball s still the finest American game.”
Despite not wanting to be critical, Young said he was not happy with how easily pitchers were removed from games:
“’In my day it was like taking a physical beating when a pitcher was taken out of a game…But today,’ he said with a sigh, ‘it looks to me as if some pitchers want help and want to be taken out.’
“’A pitcher ought to fight his own battle to the bitter end, even when he gets into trouble.’”
Young blamed the lack of complete games on improper training, “the result of big salaries and winter frolicking.”
Cy Young on his 87th birthday
Young said, “When I was in my prime, I could run two miles a day and I kept in condition the year around,” by working at his father’s farm and chopping wood.
Young turned to hitting and told Short too many current batters were swinging for the fences:
“You can’t meet the ball right when you are trying to hit a homer every swing.”
He blamed that mindset for the difficulty the Indians had during th 1954 World Series—the Giants swept Cleveland and the team hit just .190 and scored nine runs in the four loses. He said:
“’The Indians were helpless against New York in New York and even more helpless in those two games in Cleveland.’
“But Young quickly added, ‘don’t you forget half the game of baseball is the breaks you get.’”
Young, who would soon turn 88, told Short he still tried to attend “two or three games a year” in Cleveland. He died shortly after the 1955 season on November 4.
Baseball History Daily 