Weatherman2020
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #21
No one can explain why he never won a Cy Young, let alone 5.As Bob Feller famously said about Mr. Ryan (I'm paraphrasing), he can not be called great because his winning percentage was mediocre (324/292).
And that is the biggest question about Ryan - not his failure to win a Cy Young award. Why did he have such a weak W-L record?
My own personal belief was the phenomenon had two causes: (1) He always was scheduled to pitch against the opponent's best pitcher, and (2) the opponents played extra-tough against Ryan because they assumed that it would be a low-scoring game, regardless.
Like Tim Wakefield (is this sacreligious?), he was a very popular pitcher whose record was not particularly impressive.
Just as important, he seemed to be a humble, no nonsense guy. Lord, we could use more of that sort today.
51 MLB records in his name.