Nashville pride: Cy Young winners share a connection

• Dickey and Price won the NL and AL Cy Young award, respectively
• Dickey and Price grew up 30 miles apart, but 11 years apart
• Both took different paths to Major League Baseball stardom

R.A. Dickey is 11 years older than David Price. Dickey was raised in Nashville, Price in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

They took different paths to Major League Baseball stardom, and these days they throw completely different pitches.

Now they have something incredible in common.

Dickey, a right-hander for the New York Mets, and Price, a left-hander for the Tampa Bay Rays, are Cy Young Award winners.

The honors are given annually to the top National and American league pitchers, as voted by the Baseball Writers Association of America. It is just the fourth time pitchers from the same state have won the award in the same year.

Both pitchers were dominant in 2012, with Dickey throwing an 81 mph knuckleball and Price firing a 97 mph fastball.

"Isn't that fun? Isn't that great?" Dickey said. "That's what I think is so awesome — to see the dichotomy between a guy who throws 100 from the left side, and a guy who grinds it out with knuckleballs on the other side. And it just shows you there's not just one way to do it."

Said Price: "I'm trying to overpower guys and then trick them, and then R.A. is just trying to throw a knuckleball at them. In a sense it's easier for him because he knows he's going to throw a knuckleball, and in a sense it's tougher for him because the hitter knows he's just going to throw a knuckleball."

Dickey finished with 27 of 32 first-place votes to beat out fellow NL hurlers Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Gio Gonzalez of the Washington Nationals.

Price won the closest AL vote since 1969. His 153 points edged Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander by four.

"It's a blessing. It's an honor I'll always have," Price said. "To have that award and be on the list with all those guys and all those names who have won the Cy Young, it means a lot to me."

Dickey, 38, is the first knuckleballer to win the Cy Young. A former power thrower, in his early 30s he switched in order to prolong his career.

This season he went 20-6, led the NL in strikeouts (230) and innings pitched (233.2), and set a team record for consecutive scoreless innings (32.2). He became the first Met with 20 wins since Frank Viola in 1990 and the first Met to capture the Cy Young since Dwight Gooden in 1985.

It also was an important year off the field for the former Montgomery Bell Academy and University of Tennessee star. He wrote a critically acclaimed autobiography, in which he revealed he had been sexually abused as a child.

"I was proud that I've made it a discipline to try to live in the moment well, and my script on that hasn't changed. I really try do that," Dickey said. "This year was a culmination I think, of that, of being able to do that well."

Price, who went to Blackman High and Vanderbilt and was the No. 1 pick in 2007, finished second in the AL Cy Young voting in 2010.

This season he won 20 games and posted a 2.56 earned run average, leading the AL in both categories. He was particularly sharp against divisional opponents, going 10-2 with a 2.51 ERA in 16 starts against the AL East.

The AL Cy Young winner was announced about a half-hour before the NL. When Dickey saw it was Price, he jumped and clapped his hands.

"I know him personally," Dickey said. "I know how hard he has worked and I know how hard he has committed himself to his own craft and he has an incredible gift as someone who can throw 97 mph from the left side, and he can hit a gnat in the butt."