Motivation Quote by Cy Young

Baseball worships merit, but it can’t stop flirting with fate. Cy Young’s line punctures the clean mythology of the no-hitter as pure dominance and replaces it with something truer: excellence is mandatory, but it’s never sufficient.

The intent is almost disarmingly practical. Young, the sport’s original workhorse-ace, is telling you that a no-hit game isn’t a simple referendum on a pitcher’s stuff. You need command, stamina, and the ability to keep solving hitters as they adjust. Yet the subtext is the part that stings: even when you’re great, the game still has to cooperate. A blooper can fall fair or foul. A rocket can find a glove. An umpire can stretch a corner. A teammate can turn a hard one-hopper into an out or boot it into history. “Lucky” isn’t an excuse; it’s an acknowledgment of baseball’s built-in randomness.

Context matters: Young pitched in an era of uneven fields, variable ball quality, and minimal protective gear, when “good” often meant surviving chaos as much as overpowering opponents. In that environment, the no-hitter becomes less a crown and more a convergence: skill meeting circumstance on the same afternoon.

What makes the quote work is its quiet deflation. It’s not romantic, it’s seasoned. Coming from a legend, it’s also democratic: the sport’s highest individual feat is, in the end, a team-and-physics collaboration. Greatness, Young implies, is showing up prepared for luck when it finally wanders your way.