I always like to steer things to Prewar. Of course it was a hugely different pitching environment around the turn of the 20th century, and Ryan whizzed the ball in there at a very high velocity, but I have always been amazed that Cy Young completed 749 of his 815 games he started in his 22 year career, which is 91.9%! Even during his last six years when he was 40 years old and older, he completed 125 of 156 games started, a clip of 80.1%. And pitching all these innings (average of 343 per year throughout his career, which included finishing 84 games as well) and still maintaining a 2.63 career ERA. Impressive.
Brian
Quote:
Originally Posted by Balticfox
Well I suppose one could nitpick and "fault" Nolan Ryan for not having either a screwball or a knuckleball, but in his defence (and I'm not exactly one of his big fans), he still threw a whopping 222 complete games in 773 starts with an ERA of only 3.19 over his 27 seasons. Those are inredibly good numbers.
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