The Following Lot Originates from the Jake Virtue Estate Collection (click here for info.)
Denton True “Cy” Young pitched for five teams in his 22-year baseball career (1890-1911). His first eight years were spent with the National League Cleveland Spiders. Such was his lore that the year after his death in 1956 the Cy Young Award was created to honor major league baseball’s best pitcher yearly.
Cy Young’s career, perhaps more than any other player, is seen as a bridge from baseball’s earliest days to its modern era. When he first began, pitchers were required to throw sidearm; foul balls were not considered strikes; walks required eight balls and the pitcher’s mound was five feet closer. Four years into his career, in 1893, the year of the cabinet card offered here, the above-mentioned rules changed and the modern era, as we know it, began. One more not commonly known oddity, and yet another testament to transitioning toward the game as we know it today, was the fact that Young did not even wear a glove until his sixth season. He clearly belonged to both eras; a perception that was never more evident when the idea of the Hall of Fame first came up in 1936. Because there were two voting committees, a 19th Century Veteran’s group and a 20th Century group, the votes were divided for Cy Young. Therefore, he didn’t get in with the initial class. That mistake was rectified the very next opportunity in 1937.
His records and achievements are so eye-popping and otherworldly that if he were pitching today, he would probably have received baseball’s first billion dollar contract. The enormity of some of the numbers helps explain how he won 511 games; nearly 100 more wins than anyone else and a record baseball statisticians believe will never be broken. He threw over 400 innings in each of his first four years and for 19 years consecutively was in the top 10 in innings pitched. He had 40 or more complete games in a season nine times, and it was ten years into his career before he pitched two consecutive incomplete games! All this added up to more records no one will ever come close to; among them, 7,356 innings pitched and 815 games started with 749 complete; a nearly 92% complete game ratio!
If anyone needs more convincing as to why we give the Cy Young award to baseball’s best pitcher, here’s just a little bit more: He was the first to pitch a perfect game in the modern era and threw two other no-hitters. And it was Cy Young who started and threw the first pitch in the first-ever modern era World Series game in 1903 and was instrumental in bringing the championship to the Boston Americans, five games to three, over the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was yet another example of bridging the old and new eras, as he had previously, in 1895, pitched the Cleveland Spiders to a 4-1 victory over Baltimore in the “Temple Cup,” which was a precursor to the modern World Series. Three of the four wins had been his. It was around the time of the Temple Cup that he came up with a “slow ball” to take the strain off the sheer amount of maximum stress pitches he was throwing. We now know this pitch as a change-up.
He won over 30 games five times and 20 or more, a record 15 seasons. Following his election into the Hall of Fame in 1937, and 88 years after he had thrown his last professional pitch, Cy Young, in 1999, was ranked 14th on “Sporting News” list of “Baseball’s 100 Greatest Players” and named to the “Major League Baseball All-Century Team.”
From the estate collection of former Cleveland Spiders player Jake Virtue comes one of the most astonishing 19th century card related discoveries in recent years, this one-of-a-kind rookie-era cabinet photo of the legendary Cy Young. Possibly the first image ever produced of Young in a major league uniform, the crystal clear, window-like photograph captures Young as he poses in a formal studio setting. The photographer's credit, "John H. Ryder - Cleveland, Ohio," appears both on the base of the mount and reverse. This specific image of Young has been seen on a rare 1891 Cleveland Spiders team composite baseball schedule display, dating its origin to his first full season in professional baseball and warranting possible consideration as his rookie issue.
Almost as astonishing as its mere existence is its incredible state of preservation. Although the card has been graded GOOD+ 2.5 by PSA, it must be understood that this cabinet card (4.25 x 6.5 inches) shows minimal evidence of handling, with the photo demonstrating the most vivid clarity and quality imaginable for an artifact of its age and type. The low technical grade is due solely to a small band of paper residue across the top back from prior album mounting, and spot of surface wear on the left front margin. The absence of these minuscule defects would likely have added 4 or 5 points to its rating. The confluence of rarity, condition and historical importance embodied by this previously unknown artifact defies hyperbole. With due respect to the singular known example of his 1893 Just So Tobacco card, we present this as a worthy contender as the hobby’s most important depiction of baseball’s most celebrated pitcher. LOA from the estate of Jake Virtue.