Youngs was a part of the Giants teams that won four consecutive National League pennants and the 1921 and 1922 World Series.

[4] His father was a railroad worker,[5] but suffered disability and moved his family to San Antonio where he worked as a rancher.

[4] In 1916, playing in the infield for the Sherman Lions of the Class-D Western Association, he hit .362 as a switch-hitter, drawing the attention of the New York Giants, who purchased his contract in August for $2,000 ($56,000 in current dollar terms).

[4] In 1918, regular Giants right fielder Dave Robertson left the team to manage a local military ballclub,[7] and Youngs was given the full-time job out of spring training.

[8] The next season Robertson was traded to the Chicago Cubs for pitcher Phil Douglas, leaving Youngs to become a fixture in right field for the Giants.

[17] In the final series of this season, the Giants were playing the Philadelphia Phillies at the Polo Grounds and battling for the pennant with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Jimmy O'Connell, an outfielder for the Giants, offered Phillies shortstop Heinie Sand $500 to intentionally lose the games ($8,889 in current dollar terms).

It eventually led to the lifetime suspension of O'Connell and Giants coach Crazy Dolan by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

O'Connell implicated teammates Youngs, George Kelly, and Frankie Frisch as co-conspirators;[18] Landis, however, cleared the trio of any wrongdoing.

[4] Toward the end of his career, Youngs taught Mel Ott, his eventual successor, how to play right field in the Polo Grounds.

[4] Youngs's career was abruptly cut short in 1926, when he was diagnosed with the kidney disorder that, at the time, was called Bright's disease.

[21] Too ill to play after August 10, 1926, Youngs returned home on McGraw's insistence[4][6] and received a blood transfusion in March 1927.

[27] In addition to Youngs, Terry and Frisch shepherded the selections of Giants teammates Jesse Haines in 1970, Dave Bancroft and Chick Hafey in 1971, George Kelly in 1973, Jim Bottomley in 1974, and Freddie Lindstrom in 1976.

[33] In 1981, however, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included Youngs in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time.

They explained what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome", where a player of truly exceptional talent but a career curtailed by injury or illness should still – in spite of not owning career statistics that would quantitatively rank him with the all-time greats – be included on their list of the 100 greatest players.

[4] Youngs was considered friendly and generous, loaned money constantly, and was reportedly owed $16,000 at the time of his death ($280,644 in current dollar terms).