Slightly O/T: Did Cy Young "Only" Win 510 Games?

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Maybe I missed it, but what makes you think the win was counted in his regular season totals?

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

Maybe I missed it, but what makes you think the win was counted in his regular season totals?

It's listed as an official game now and he threw a complete game in the win.

All of the stuff above shows that it wasn't an official game and shouldn't be included in the stats for the 18 players in the game.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by z28jd

It's listed as an official game now and he threw a complete game in the win.

All of the stuff above shows that it wasn't an official game and shouldn't be included in the stats for the 18 players in the game.

One thing to note, however, is that you are looking at only one side of the story. You are hearing from the Allegheny's club president and their dutifully obliging local newspaper. Do you have any record of what the Cleveland paper had to say about the same game? Not that I have any idea what the difference would be between 112 losses and 113. But the reasoning may have nothing to do with the yearly loss total. Maybe the club president had some kind of bet and was trying to welch out of it by claiming the game was just an exhibition? No idea. But I need to see more before I am convinced.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

One thing to note, however, is that you are looking at only one side of the story. You are hearing from the Allegheny's club president and their dutifully obliging local newspaper. Do you have any record of what the Cleveland paper had to say about the same game? Not that I have any idea what the difference would be between 112 losses and 113. But the reasoning may have nothing to do with the yearly loss total. Maybe the club president had some kind of bet and was trying to welch out of it by claiming the game was just an exhibition? No idea. But I need to see more before I am convinced.

The local papers weren't kind to the team at this time, so I highly doubt they combined with him to call a random road game an exhibition in the middle of a 112 loss season. The game recap above had to be sent to the local paper from whoever covered the game in Wheeling. They didn't do road trips back in 1890 to cover games.

There's also the matter of the team being 21-104 at the time. If he wanted to avoid losses, they wouldn't have cut some of the best players near the end of the season to save money.

The Sporting Life had this note in with all of their other random notes from the time, which were compiled by them. This was listed two issues before the quote from the team president

[markf31]

I've been trying to track down a game log, or list of games that are credited to Cy Young. Do you have a link showing that he was in fact the winning pitcher?

[markf31]

From the book The Pittsburgh Pirates By Fred Lieb, the author states this:



So Fred Lieb's research led him to the fact that the game was deemed an exhibition by the league.

[btcarfagno]

Originally Posted by markf31

From the book The Pittsburgh Pirates By Fred Lieb, the author states this:



So Fred Lieb's research led him to the fact that the game was deemed an exhibition by the league.

Under what circumstances would a league retroactively call a sanctioned league game an exhibition? What would be the purpose?

I suppose if the league (for whatever asshatted reason) deemed it to (retroactively) be an exhibition, then the stats should not count.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by markf31

I've been trying to track down a game log, or list of games that are credited to Cy Young. Do you have a link showing that he was in fact the winning pitcher?

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1890/VCL401890.htm

Young made 16 starts and all 16 were complete games. You can see on there that Cleveland won 9, tied 1 and lost six. He recorded his other loss that season in his only relief outing. The game in question is Sept 18th, which is listed as an official game now, but wasn't official back then.