Challenge to Cy Young Award Winners

Congratulations to Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals and Tim Linecum of the San Francisco Giants, winners of the American League and National League Cy Young Awards for 2009.

Both are outstanding major league pitchers, who competed against several other outstanding pitchers, including Josh Johnson, Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright in the national League, and Roy Halladay, Josh Beckett, and several other American League pithers.

But how much to these and other young players know about Cy Young? He has been gone a long time and some baseball lovers coubt there will ever be a greater pitcher. Here is an interesting story my grandfather told me before he died.

Grandmother had been hospitalized for hip replacement surgery and Boppa (his name since his first grandchild's first attempt to say "grandpa") was at our house for dinner. I was stunned by how frail he had become and winced as I watched him struggling with both arthritic hands to lift his water glass.

Boppa had been quite the athlete in his day. a good thing, too, since he was the oldest of six children in a blue collar Ohio family, during the Great Depression. His athletic talent earned him a full scholarship in exchange for playing baseball and football at Elon College far away in North Carolina.

That evening at dinner, about a year before his death, the conversation turned to the way sports programs have evolved in public school. He told about how teams in his hometown of Dover wre trained by volunteer teachers, who put academic achievement ahead of athletic prowess.

"Only once a year did anyone get paid to coach us," he said.

"When was that, Boppa?"

"Well, our biggest rival was our closest neighbor, New Phioladelphia. The Dover-New Philly football game was always the last game of the season. So every year, the businessmen of both towns would chip in to pay somebody with more expertise to come in and work with us for the week before the big game. One year Dover got Jim Thorpe to coach our team."

"You knew Jim thorpe?"

"No, no, that was after I'd graduated," Boppa chuckled.

Then his eyes twindled mischievously. "But, I'll tell you somebody I did Know," he paused dramatically, waiting for the question.

"Who?"

"Have you ever heard of a fella named Cy Young?"

My jaw fell as my eyes popped wide and I sat in stunned silence for a moment.

"Of course I've heard of Cy Young. You knew him?"

"Well, not like we were buddies or anything, but, sure, I knew him."

"How?"

Boppa launched into his animated tale. Cy Young grew up in Gilmore, just south of Dover and New Philadelphia. All three towns are in Tuscarawas County, Ohio.

Boppa explained that when his career as a player ended, Cy ran a baseball circuit to promote the sport and support new talent. he and a few of his cronies would show up at local games and pitch an exhibition inning or two before the real game began.

"One time," Boppa continued, "Cy didn't have his catcher with him. He called to me, 'Hey, Paul, come catch me, would ya?'"

"You mean to tell me you caught for Cy Young?"

My grandfather was by nature quite shy, so I shouldn't have been surprised when he simply shrugged and said quietly, "Well, just that one time."

"Ohmigosh!" I cackled. "Did you keep the ball?"

"Naw," Bop waved me off. "Back then the glory was for the game and for the team, not so much for individual players. I don't think any of us gave much thought to Cy being famous."

Cy died in 1955 and my grandfather died in 1997. They were from a coupld of generations of athletes who believed in the honor of sportsmanship and team effort.

So, while I congratulate both Greinke and Linecum, I also challenge them and their generation to keep the honor alive.