Wondering about baseball's well-known pitchers?

Meet some of baseball's most famous pitchers. Arguably the greatest one of all was Denton True "Cy" Young, who won 511 major league games, more than any other pitcher. Cy, which was short for Cyclone, got his nickname after a pre-game pitch that smashed a fence into splinters. He pitched three no-hitters and had a perfect game (no one got to first base) on May 5, 1904, for the Boston Red Sox. Young was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937.

Charles Albert "Chief" Bender was the pitcher you wanted if you had to win a game, according to Connie Mack, the famous gentleman manager of the Philadelphia Athletics. Bender got the nickname "Chief" because he was one-quarter Chippewa Indian. Although he didn't like the nickname Chief because many people were prejudiced against Native Americans, Bender didn't complain. He did, however, sign autographs as "Charles Bender." He won more than 200 games and led the A's to five World Series. Bender had a special pitch that was halfway between a fastball and a curve, which became known as the slider or "nickel curve." It's a key pitch in the arsenal of many pitchers today. Bender was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1953.

Adrian "Addie" Joss was known as "the Human Hairpin" because of the way he pitched--with an exaggerated pinwheel motion. Joss was from Cleveland and he always played with the Cleveland team. Here you can see his baseball card from 1911. On the back it says, "His best year was 1908, when he won 24 games out of 35, and put the Naps within half a point of the pennant. On October 2 of that year he pitched a game against Chicago, when no player of the White Sox reached first."

That perfect game was the highlight of a tragically short career. Joss died of tubercular meningitis when he was just 31 years old. In 1978, Joss was elected to the Hall of Fame, after the Veterans Committee decided to bend its 10-year rule, which states that to be eligible, a player must have played for 10 seasons in the major leagues. Joss had barely played nine seasons before he died.

Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown had the nickname "Miner" Brown because before he was a ballplayer he worked in a coal mine for several years. He was also called "Three Finger" Brown because when he was seven, his right hand got stuck in his uncle's corn shredder and he lost most of his index finger and paralyzed his pinky. But that didn't stop him from being a great pitcher. He learned to spin the ball off the stub of his index finger, which gave his curveball a special twist. Another legendary player, Ty Cobb, said of Brown's breaking ball, "It was the most devastating pitch I ever faced." Brown, who played most of his professional career with the Chicago Cubs, pitched 239 victories and helped the Cubs win four championships. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1949.

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