Charles, Akron, OHSubj: What’s in a name?
How did “Cy” Young get his nickname?
Denton True Young had his nickname bestowed upon him in his teens when he tried out for a Canton, Ohio minor league baseball team. According to legend, the catcher assigned to warm him up was so impressed by the velocity of his fastball that he immediately renamed him “Cyclone.” Local reporters eventually shortened the moniker to “Cy” and Young’s identity was forged for the rest of his life. According to Young himself, the secret to his extraordinary success may have been a matter of genetics. “All us Youngs could throw,” he once said. “I used to kill squirrels with a stone when I was a kid, and my granddad once killed a turkey buzzard on the fly with a rock.”
