Cy Young Wins His 300th Game

On July 12, 1901, Cy Young of the Boston Americans defeated the Philadelphia Athletics 5-3 to record his 300th career victory. Young allowed seven hits and pitched a complete game, reaching the milestone in his 12th major league season at the age of 34. He became the seventh pitcher in baseball history to win 300 games and the first to do so in the newly formed American League.

Young had jumped from the National League's St. Louis Cardinals to the American League's Boston franchise before the 1901 season, lured by a higher salary as the two leagues competed for talent. The move put him on a team that would eventually become the Boston Red Sox, and he immediately became the staff ace. He won 33 games in that first American League season, leading the league.

The 300th win came at a time when pitching workloads bore no resemblance to the modern game. Young regularly pitched over 300 innings per season and completed nearly every game he started. In 1901, he started 41 games and completed 38 of them. His arm endurance was legendary even by the standards of the dead-ball era, when pitchers were expected to finish what they started.

Young's career had begun in 1890 with the Cleveland Spiders of the National League, where he earned his nickname. The popular story held that his fastball was so powerful it looked like it had been shot from a cyclone, shortened to "Cy." Whether the origin story is true, the name fit. Young's fastball and command overwhelmed hitters across two centuries of baseball.

He would pitch 10 more seasons after winning number 300, adding 211 more victories to push his career total to 511. That record, along with his 749 complete games and 7,356 innings pitched, stands as the most untouchable set of numbers in baseball history. No pitcher since has won more than 373.