The first of April, 2024, will be a big day for a late, great man. Waite Hoyt of the 1927 New York Yankees will release a new book: “Schoolboy: The Untold Journey of a Yankees Hero.” (University of Nebraska Press) His memoir!
Wait – what? “Schoolboy” Hoyt died in 1984. How is this possible?
Waite Hoyt was not only the ace pitcher of the 1920s Yankees, but he was also an incredible storyteller who left behind eight boxes of notes, writings, interview transcripts and memoir attempts. Co-author Tim Manners used this trove, afforded to him by Waite’s son Chris, to compose this memoir in the Yankee legend’s own words, 40 years later.
“Schoolboy” captures Hoyt’s jaw-dropping journey, from a teenager cavorting with men twice his age in the hardscrabble Minor Leagues to somehow becoming the best pitcher on the greatest baseball team of all time – the 1927 New York Yankees. While Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were hitting those epic bombs, “Schoolboy” Hoyt was the pitcher who smoked opposing batters and sparked the Yankees Dynasty.
Hoyt was also a vaudeville star who swapped dirty jokes with Mae West, a mortician who left a body chilling in his car while pitching an afternoon game at Yankee Stadium, a recovering alcoholic who drank champagne with Al Capone, and, following his 23-year pitching career, the beloved radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds for 24 years.
“Schoolboy” is not only for baseball buffs, Roaring ’20s aficionados, or those struggling with addiction, but also anyone who has lingered over the paradox of success. Despite being a dominant pitcher for the Yankees throughout the 1920s and among the one percent of Major Leaguers selected for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Hoyt felt he would have had more success had he finished school and gotten a “real” job.
Some of Waite Hoyt’s vignettes are funny, many are poignant and others are tragic, but he never flinches from an unsparing account of his remarkable 84-year odyssey.
Schoolboy is shipping now via Amazon and will be in bookstores after April 1, 2024.
Tim Manners is a writer, communications consultant and baseball fan. Waite Hoyt (1899-1984) pitched twenty-one Major League seasons and led the Yankees to three World Series championships. He later became a popular broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds and was elevated to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969. Bob Costas, the noted sportscaster, wrote the book’s foreword. The University of Nebraska Press was founded in 1941 and is an academic publisher of scholarly and general-interest books.
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