HARD TO BEAT SPORTS RECORDS BY BARRY WILNER THE WILD WORLD OF Sports SportsZone An Imprint of Abdo Publishing abdopublishing com
CHAPTER 1 MOUND MASTERY Cy Young wouldn’t have been a great fit in modern baseball These days pitchers rarely throw complete games But when Young played pitchers were expected to throw all nine innings or more if necessary And they often pitched on one or two days rest That led to some amazing statistics that likely will never be topped For example from 1890 to 1911 Young started a record 815 games He finished 749 of them No one has come within 100 of that remarkable complete-game total And Young’s 7,356 career innings pitched put him more than 1,300 ahead of Pud Galvin who was second Young’s 511 victories put him 94 ahead of the next-closest pitcher Walter Johnson Young won at least 30 games in five different seasons He also lost 316 games another record though that is only six more losses than Galvin’s total even though Young pitched for seven more seasons Cy Young set the bar high for future pitchers
