You Can't Spell "Dickey" Without a "C" and a "Y"

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2012 National League Cy Young Award winner, R.A. Dickey!

DICKEY DONE DID IT!!

For the first time since 1985, a New York Mets pitcher has won the National League Cy Young Award, as R.A. Dickey was just bestowed the highest honor at his position, earning 209 votes (27 first place votes) to beat out last year’s winner, Clayton Kershaw (96 votes, two first place votes) and Gio Gonzalez (93 votes, one first place vote).  Not since Dwight Gooden over a quarter century ago had a Mets pitcher taken home the coveted hardware.  Dickey is also the third Met in team history to receive the Cy Young Award, joining the aforementioned Gooden and “The Franchise” himself, Tom Seaver, who won the award in 1969, 1973 and 1975.

Dickey was at or near the top in mostly every major pitching category.  He led the league in innings pitched (233⅔), strikeouts (230), complete games (5), shutouts (3), quality starts (27) and New York Times best-sellers (1).  The knuckleball artist also finished near the league lead in wins (20, 2^nd in NL), ERA (2.73, 2^nd in NL) and WHIP (1.053, 3^rd in NL), while establishing a franchise mark by being credited with 27.0% of his team’s victories (Dickey won 20 games for the 74-88 Mets, surpassing Seaver’s 26.8% mark from 1975 when Tom Terrific won 22 games for a team that finished 82-80).

Prior to winning the Cy Young Award, Dickey was mostly known as the guy who gave yours truly permission to write the semi-regular Dickeypedia Word of the Week feature.  Now he’s known for so much more, and deservedly so.

The Studious Metsimus staff would like to congratulate R.A. Dickey on becoming the first knuckleball pitcher to win the National League Cy Young Award, an honor that had eluded a Mets pitcher for 27 years.  It couldn’t have gone to a better candidate or a better person.