Yesterday's history lesson was about the Ozzie Smith-Gary Templeton trade. Today's, courtesy of the excellent Wezen-Ball, is about relief pitchers who have won the Cy Young award:

In the 19 years between 1974 and 1992, there were eight different relievers who won the Cy Young award. In the 17 years since then, there has been only one. It seems to have taken the people voting on the Cy Young awards quite a while before they were able to realize that a merely "strong" season from a closer is just not enough to earn the Cy Young, but I'm happy they have. There are definitely seasons here and there that deserve the recognition (Fingers, Gagne, maybe Eck, maybe Marshall), but they aren't nearly as plentiful as the 1970s and 1980s seemed to suggest.

Like everything else Lar writes over at Wezen-Ball, this article brings some in-depth history and analysis to the table on a very interesting subject. Upon reading it, you begin to realize that there may be no area of inquiry that leads to more head-scratching moments than relief pitcher studies. Moments in which you ponder how Willie Hernandez won the 1984 Cy Young and MVP Awards, but Dan Quisenberry won the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award. Quiz was the best reliever, but Hernandez -- also a reliever -- was the better pitcher? Really?

Anyway, while knowing your way around the stats and the strategies is important, the foundation of any halfway decent baseball fan's education is history, so going forward I'll be dropping more links to good solid stuff like this. Consider it your daily serving of vegetables.