Reed Browning

I think that nobody writes baseball better than Reed Browning. He always offers a smooth narrative with just enough statistical analysis and informed opinion to persuade a reader as to the validity of the several viewpoints on points of contention in baseball's historical community. In this case his subject is baseball's winningest pitcher, Old Cy Young. I've seen many an 'untouchable' baseball record threatened or broken in my day, but Young's wins record is truly one that will endure--try to imagine a pitcher these days winning twenty games a season for twenty years, and then reflect upon the fact that said pitcher would still have to pick up another 100 wins somewhere. Young's record for most innings pitched is, if anything, even more unbreakable. The narrative of Young's life and career is broken by a few interstitial chapters which treat of discussions of various life-and-times issues placing Young in the context of the eras in which he played. Young was a genial man who wore his fame rather lightly, and this book gives a very full picture of that as well as of his career.… (mehr)

In the 1890s and 1900s, we learn from Reed Browning’s Cy Young: A Baseball Life, baseball players sometimes were reported by the press to be suffering from malaria. While that would be a surprising development today, back then malaria was widespread in the U.S.

However, the etiology of these cases was unusual and for that reason not reported by the press. The players, it seems, were struck by the disease after spending time in enjoyment of the company of frolicsome women rather than noxious mosquitos. By contrast, Cy Young, a blissfully married man whose love for his wife was faithful and unstinting, never in his twenty-two seasons suffered from ballplayer’s “malaria.”

Those were the times of seeing between the lines. Appropriate for a sport like baseball.

These and other details give interest to Reed Browning’s biography of the pitching legend famous in name though not in image. It’s a well-documented story plus a fair assessment of Young’s achievement and provides an excellent picture of what is was like to pitch back in the 1890s and 1900s. It’s also a look at what was then a still-developing sport—half of Cy Young’s career was over before the American League even came into existence. A good book for historically minded baseball fans.… (mehr)