Waite Hoyt

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Waite Hoyt

Waite Charles Hoyt (September 9, 1899 – August 25, 1984) was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball, one of the dominant pitchers of the 1920s, and the winningest pitcher for the New York Yankees during that decade. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.

Hoyt was born in Brooklyn, New York and despite being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan was signed to a professional contract by New York Giants manager John McGraw when he was but 15. Because of his extreme youth, he was immediately nicknamed "The Schoolboy Wonder." But Hoyt would not achieve his greatest success as a Giant.

Waite Hoyt
is a member of
the Baseball
Hall of Fame

After a brief stint with the Giants, McGraw sent the young pitcher to the minors for seasoning. It wasn't long before he reappeared in the majors, this time with the Boston Red Sox. His performance there attracted the attention of the Yankees, who acquired him in 1920. In his first season as a Yankee, 1921, he rose to instant stardom, winning 19 games and pitching three complete games in the World Series without allowing an earned run — over his career, he would win six American League pennants with the Yankees and one with the Philadelphia Athletics. In his finest years with the Yankees, 1927 and 1928, Hoyt would post records of 22 wins and 7 losses with a 2.64 ERA and 23 wins and 7 losses with a 3.36 ERA. During his 21 year career, he won ten or more games twelve times, eleven of them consecutively. Hoyt pitched for 8 years after leaving the Yankees in 1930 but did not consistently display similar levels of pitching dominance.

Hoyt finished his career with a win-loss record of 237–182 and an ERA of 3.59. By the time he retired in 1938, he was the winningest pitcher in World Series history (his World Series record with the Yankees and A's is 6 wins and 4 losses).

He then went into broadcasting, working the first two years of his new career for the Dodgers, and a subsequent twenty-four as the voice of the Cincinnati Reds. He retired from full-time broadcasting work in 1965, though he would later make appearances on both radio and television. Hoyt was known for entertaining radio audiences with anecdotes during rain delays. A selection of these stories is collected on two record albums "The Best of Waite Hoyt in the Rain" and "The Best of Waite Hoyt in the Rain, Volume 2." Whether one considers it a blessing or a curse on the subsequent evolution of sports broadcasting, Hoyt was one of the first professional athletes to develop a successful career in broadcasting and his name frequently appears on "all-time best" broadcaster lists.

In addition to the "Schoolboy" moniker appearing on his Hall of Fame plaque, Hoyt was also known as "The Merry Mortician." For when he wasn't playing baseball he spent days working as a funeral director and nights appearing on vaudeville. As a vaudevillian, he appeared with many of the most well-known performers of the day, including Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, George Burns and others. He kept in good shape during the offseason by playing semi-pro basketball.

He added to his repertoire by becoming an accomplished painter and writer. He was well-known as the pre-eminent authority on Babe Ruth, who was his teammate for many years. Robert Creamer, author of the definitive Ruth biography Babe, indicated in that book's introduction that the novella-length memoir written by Hoyt shortly after Ruth's death was "by far the most revealing and rewarding work on Ruth."

A longtime member of Alcoholics Anonymous, during the 1978 Old-Timers' Day, Hoyt said wistfully that he'd have won 300 games if he had stopped drinking during his playing days. After joining A.A., he remained sober for more than forty years.

An eternal optimist, Hoyt married his third wife, Bettie Dearie in 1982. Dearie, a longtime fan, was an associate of Warren Giles, president first of the Reds and subsequently of the National League.

The aging Hoyt died of heart failure while preparing for what he realized would be his final visit to the Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, New York.

Living descendants of Waite Hoyt include Chris Hoyt (son), Rand Hoyt and Chip Hoyt (grandsons), Romi Goldsmith and Jennifer Blanchard (granddaughters), great grandsons Wyatt Shaw, Raynor Hoyt, Tyler Hoyt, Benjamin Goldsmith, and Jeremy Goldsmith and great granddaughters Portia Blanchard and Daphne Blanchard.