Denny McLain Marquee

In 1968 he started 41 games, completed 28 of them, threw 336 innings and went 31-6 with a 1.96 ERA. Nobody has won thirty since. Three men had done it in the fifty years before him: Jim Bagby in 1920, Lefty Grove in 1931 and Dizzy Dean in 1934. The most anyone has won in a season since is 27.

He took the Cy Young Award and the Most Valuable Player award for that year, and Detroit won the World Series. In 1969 he won 24 more, shut out nine opponents to lead the American League, and shared a second Cy Young with Mike Cuellar. He was twenty-five, and he had thrown 661 innings in two seasons.

Baseball suspended him twice in 1970, the first time over his involvement with a bookmaking operation, and he pitched fourteen games that year. He lost 22 for Washington in 1971, more than any other pitcher in the league, and was gone after 1972 at twenty-eight. Three writers' ballots gave him six votes in all.