There are many autobiographies of baseball players, but Waite Hoyt’s recollections of his 21-year career in the major leagues have seen the light 40 years after his death.
Just call Tim Manners a true ghostwriter. The longtime writer, editor, essayist and baseball fan has resurrected the ghost of Waite Hoyt, the ace of the New York Yankees pitching staff during the 1920s. Hoyt would pitch in six World Series for the Yankees and also made an appearance in the 1931 Series with the Philadelphia Athletics. The right-hander won 20 games twice and at least 16 games seven times during his career.
He became the radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds from 1942 to 1965 and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.
Manners brings the life and times of Hoyt back to life in his own words in Schoolboy: The Untold Journey of a Yankees Hero (University of Nebraska Press; hardback; $34.95; 260 pages). It is the story of a baseball player who began his career as a mere schoolboy (hence his nickname) and had a refreshingly candid view of his life in baseball and his personal struggles.
“Reanimating Waite Hoyt’s amazing, untold story was like stealing bases for me,” Manners writes. “As a genetically ordained editor, I never had so much fun as I did blue-penciling his journey.”
Manners notes that Hoyt "was a man in conflict with himself." He was athletic, but also enjoyed painting and the arts. He was a cultured man who could still mix it up during the rough-and-tumble 1920s, when the Yankees -- and Babe Ruth -- established their baseball dynasty.
Manners met Hoyt’s son, Chris Hoyt, in 1982. He never connected his friend with the Yankees pitcher, because the younger Hoyt never mentioned it and Manners admittedly had never heard of Waite Hoyt. He was embarrassed to discover who Chris Hoyt’s father was two years later during a casual conversation.
Over dinner in 2020, Manners asked Chris why an autobiography of his famous father had not been published.
“Before I knew it, eight banker’s boxes of Waite Hoyt’s notes, letters interview transcripts, memoir attempts, and other recollections were sitting on my front porch,” Manners writes.
Just call Tim Manners a true ghostwriter. The longtime writer, editor, essayist and baseball fan has resurrected the ghost of Waite Hoyt, the ace of the New York Yankees pitching staff during the 1920s. Hoyt would pitch in six World Series for the Yankees and also made an appearance in the 1931 Series with the Philadelphia Athletics. The right-hander won 20 games twice and at least 16 games seven times during his career.
He became the radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds from 1942 to 1965 and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.
Manners brings the life and times of Hoyt back to life in his own words in Schoolboy: The Untold Journey of a Yankees Hero (University of Nebraska Press; hardback; $34.95; 260 pages). It is the story of a baseball player who began his career as a mere schoolboy (hence his nickname) and had a refreshingly candid view of his life in baseball and his personal struggles.
“Reanimating Waite Hoyt’s amazing, untold story was like stealing bases for me,” Manners writes. “As a genetically ordained editor, I never had so much fun as I did blue-penciling his journey.”
Manners notes that Hoyt "was a man in conflict with himself." He was athletic, but also enjoyed painting and the arts. He was a cultured man who could still mix it up during the rough-and-tumble 1920s, when the Yankees -- and Babe Ruth -- established their baseball dynasty.
Manners met Hoyt’s son, Chris Hoyt, in 1982. He never connected his friend with the Yankees pitcher, because the younger Hoyt never mentioned it and Manners admittedly had never heard of Waite Hoyt. He was embarrassed to discover who Chris Hoyt’s father was two years later during a casual conversation.
Over dinner in 2020, Manners asked Chris why an autobiography of his famous father had not been published.
“Before I knew it, eight banker’s boxes of Waite Hoyt’s notes, letters interview transcripts, memoir attempts, and other recollections were sitting on my front porch,” Manners writes.
But as he sifted through the material, Manners said he was unsure whether that voluminous amount of material held anything that could sustain an autobiography.
And then he found a bright blue, 3-inch three-ring binder in the fifth banker’s box.
Bingo. Inside the binder were transcripts of interviews of Hoyt conducted by his niece, Ellen Frell Levy, about two years before the pitcher’s death in 1984. Manners received permission from Levy to use those interviews verbatim, and that provided the foundation for “Schoolboy.”
To his credit, Manners then lets Hoyt tell his story. And he has a lot of stories to spin and a lot of sage advice.
For example, Hoyt notes that “God loans us talent.”
“When we die the talent departs from us and is injected into someone else,” Hoyt says. “I wasn’t given any talent; it was loaned to me by the heavens.”
He also introduces a word I had to look up — “peregrinate” and its derivative, “peregrination.” The word means “to travel or wander,” or even simply, “walk,” as in “It was hard for me to find associates of my own because boys and girls weren’t free to peregrinate.”
And then he found a bright blue, 3-inch three-ring binder in the fifth banker’s box.
Bingo. Inside the binder were transcripts of interviews of Hoyt conducted by his niece, Ellen Frell Levy, about two years before the pitcher’s death in 1984. Manners received permission from Levy to use those interviews verbatim, and that provided the foundation for “Schoolboy.”
To his credit, Manners then lets Hoyt tell his story. And he has a lot of stories to spin and a lot of sage advice.
For example, Hoyt notes that “God loans us talent.”
“When we die the talent departs from us and is injected into someone else,” Hoyt says. “I wasn’t given any talent; it was loaned to me by the heavens.”
He also introduces a word I had to look up — “peregrinate” and its derivative, “peregrination.” The word means “to travel or wander,” or even simply, “walk,” as in “It was hard for me to find associates of my own because boys and girls weren’t free to peregrinate.”
Tim Manners
In addition to his pitching artistry, Hoyt also became smitten with art. He first became intrigued with Japanese art when an all-star baseball team traveled to Japan after the 1922 World Series. In the United States, Hoyt would enjoy spending time at art museums and other cultural venues. He once tried asking teammates if they wanted to see the plane Charles Lindbergh used in his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean but found no takers.
Hoyt also enjoyed reading, preferring books to card games. He carried several books with him when the Yankees would go on road trips during the season.
“While my teammates were gambling, playing poker or bridge, I would always sit off in a corner and read,” he says.
A paint-by-numbers set got Hoyt hooked on painting, and some lessons from a few artists in Cincinnati gave him a taste for creating art. But he also said that there will never be a market for an “original Hoyt” painting.
“I know my limitations, in baseball as much as in art,” Hoyt says.
Hoyt did not go as far as calling baseball an art, preferring to characterize it as a craft.
But as a pitcher, Hoyt said that learning one’s craft comes through competition.
“Lessons learned from victory and defeat, and much more by defeat than success … have no substitute,” Hoyt says. “Mistakes are always punishing, and baseball pitchers remember punishment all their lives.”
Hoyt is candid about his career, his personality and the problems he faced, including alcoholism. He is frank about his early days as a minor leaguer when he was lonely because of his young age. What he saw sometimes shocked him, noting that life in the minors had taught him things that were on “the decadent side.” Life in the majors, on the other hand, was charming.
Hoyt would call himself a boy who learned to conceal his sensitivity and idealism "beneath a crust of wise-guy sophistication."
Hoyt takes responsibility for the failure of his first marriage. His wife was a great mother, “but I didn’t grasp being a father.” Tension between Hoyt’s family and the family of his first wife, Dorothy, did not help matters.
"I must confess I wasn't the most attentive father in the world, a great fault of mine," he writes.
Hoyt’s lifestyle did not help. He was 23 and the Yankees had just won the 1923 World Series.
“You become rather loose and irresponsible,” he says. “A twenty-three-year-old kid doesn’t know what to do. His mind cannot make the adjustment.
“Of course, I wasn’t exactly the All-American boy and became careless in my associations.”
That included drinking and being a man about town in New York, a temptation that was too easy to pass up.
Hoyt also enjoyed reading, preferring books to card games. He carried several books with him when the Yankees would go on road trips during the season.
“While my teammates were gambling, playing poker or bridge, I would always sit off in a corner and read,” he says.
A paint-by-numbers set got Hoyt hooked on painting, and some lessons from a few artists in Cincinnati gave him a taste for creating art. But he also said that there will never be a market for an “original Hoyt” painting.
“I know my limitations, in baseball as much as in art,” Hoyt says.
Hoyt did not go as far as calling baseball an art, preferring to characterize it as a craft.
But as a pitcher, Hoyt said that learning one’s craft comes through competition.
“Lessons learned from victory and defeat, and much more by defeat than success … have no substitute,” Hoyt says. “Mistakes are always punishing, and baseball pitchers remember punishment all their lives.”
Hoyt is candid about his career, his personality and the problems he faced, including alcoholism. He is frank about his early days as a minor leaguer when he was lonely because of his young age. What he saw sometimes shocked him, noting that life in the minors had taught him things that were on “the decadent side.” Life in the majors, on the other hand, was charming.
Hoyt would call himself a boy who learned to conceal his sensitivity and idealism "beneath a crust of wise-guy sophistication."
Hoyt takes responsibility for the failure of his first marriage. His wife was a great mother, “but I didn’t grasp being a father.” Tension between Hoyt’s family and the family of his first wife, Dorothy, did not help matters.
"I must confess I wasn't the most attentive father in the world, a great fault of mine," he writes.
Hoyt’s lifestyle did not help. He was 23 and the Yankees had just won the 1923 World Series.
“You become rather loose and irresponsible,” he says. “A twenty-three-year-old kid doesn’t know what to do. His mind cannot make the adjustment.
“Of course, I wasn’t exactly the All-American boy and became careless in my associations.”
That included drinking and being a man about town in New York, a temptation that was too easy to pass up.
Waite Hoyt had a 237-182 record during his 21-year career in the majors. (George Grantham Bain Collection, U.S. Library of Congress)
Hoyt also tells great stories about the Yankees of the 1920s, and gives a blow-by-blow description of one of the most famous strikeouts in World Series history — when Grover Cleveland Alexander fanned Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded in the seventh inning. Hoyt said the sight of Alexander walking to the mound, a day after he had pitched a complete-game victory, “was the approaching figure of doom.”
He has plenty of stories about Ruth and expresses regret that he and his teammates gave Lou Gehrig a hard time when he first broke in as a shy, awkward rookie.
Hoyt also recounts his side job working for his father-in-law at a funeral home and then opened his own mortuary with a partner. There is a hilarious incident when Hoyt parked a vehicle with a body in a casket at Yankee Stadium because he was scheduled to pitch that day. After the game, he transported the body from the Bronx to Brooklyn.
“I imagine that was the first and last time anything like that happened at Yankee Stadium,” Hoyt says.
Hoyt also touches on his career in vaudeville, and the night he and teammate Joe Dugan met gangster Al Capone in Chicago. Hoyt and his second wife, Ellen, would become friends with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
There are plenty of anecdotes about Hoyt's career as a broadcaster, and how it was just as difficult for a radio rookie to break into the business -- and earn respect -- as it was for a major league rookie. His bouts with drinking also played a part, as he went missing for a few days in June 1945 because he checked himself into a New York hospital for alcoholism.
But when he was engaged on the radio, Hoyt was engaging. He told countless stories about the Yankees' dynasty of the 1920s.
Brooklyn Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber once noted that audiences would "pray for rain" so Hoyt could tell baseball stories.
"He had a priceless ability to tell a story interestingly and to tell it with dramatic flair and punch."
On his website, Manners recalls some advice given to him by an uncle: “Write a lot about a little, not a little about a lot.”
While Manners may have been given eight banker’s boxes to work with, he still had little to work with. How to organize Hoyt’s thoughts, how to incorporate contemporary news reports, and most importantly, how to write an autobiography in the pitcher’s voice? His teammates were long gone, but Hoyt’s words ring crisply thanks to Manners.
Hoyt said a lot, with an assist from Manners. And it was worth the wait.
He has plenty of stories about Ruth and expresses regret that he and his teammates gave Lou Gehrig a hard time when he first broke in as a shy, awkward rookie.
Hoyt also recounts his side job working for his father-in-law at a funeral home and then opened his own mortuary with a partner. There is a hilarious incident when Hoyt parked a vehicle with a body in a casket at Yankee Stadium because he was scheduled to pitch that day. After the game, he transported the body from the Bronx to Brooklyn.
“I imagine that was the first and last time anything like that happened at Yankee Stadium,” Hoyt says.
Hoyt also touches on his career in vaudeville, and the night he and teammate Joe Dugan met gangster Al Capone in Chicago. Hoyt and his second wife, Ellen, would become friends with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
There are plenty of anecdotes about Hoyt's career as a broadcaster, and how it was just as difficult for a radio rookie to break into the business -- and earn respect -- as it was for a major league rookie. His bouts with drinking also played a part, as he went missing for a few days in June 1945 because he checked himself into a New York hospital for alcoholism.
But when he was engaged on the radio, Hoyt was engaging. He told countless stories about the Yankees' dynasty of the 1920s.
Brooklyn Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber once noted that audiences would "pray for rain" so Hoyt could tell baseball stories.
"He had a priceless ability to tell a story interestingly and to tell it with dramatic flair and punch."
On his website, Manners recalls some advice given to him by an uncle: “Write a lot about a little, not a little about a lot.”
While Manners may have been given eight banker’s boxes to work with, he still had little to work with. How to organize Hoyt’s thoughts, how to incorporate contemporary news reports, and most importantly, how to write an autobiography in the pitcher’s voice? His teammates were long gone, but Hoyt’s words ring crisply thanks to Manners.
Hoyt said a lot, with an assist from Manners. And it was worth the wait.
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