"Y is for Young/The magnificent Cy/People batted against him/But I never knew why." So wrote Ogden Nash about the man who won more Major League Baseball games than anyone else—Denton True "Cy" Young. Young's 511 recorded victories number nearly 100 more than the nearest challenger. And though baseball historians have insisted that Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, and Roger Clemens may have been better on the mound, they are confident that Young's lifetime totals of 7,356 innings pitched and 750 complete games will never be broken.

Pitcher Cy Young of the Cleveland Naps.

Young was born in Gilmore, Ohio, on March 29, 1867. He began his organized baseball career in nearby Canton, where he soon earned his nickname. Some claim the name Cy is short for cyclone, referring to his fastball, while others claim that Cy, like Rube, was a common nickname of the age for a...