Summer 1988

Waite Hoyt: The BroadcastYears in Cincinnati

Waite Hoyt

Ellen Frell

When the William Morris Agency in NewYork notified Waite Hoyt, in November 1941, that they hadscheduled an audition for him for the job of play-by-playannouncer for the Cincinnati Reds, Hoyt recognized it as acritical chance.

In some ways it paralleled his "audition" forManager John McGraw of the New York Giants twenty-sixyears earlier, when at age fifteen, Hoyt was offered a chanceto pitch batting practice for the Giants. Like that opportuni-ty of 1915, making good at the Cincinnati audition held thepromise of a new career.

Hoyt had parlayed that earlier opportunityinto two decades of professional baseball that included someremarkable highlights: pitching twelve games in seven WorldSeries, matching Christy Mathewson's record for twenty-seven innings pitched without giving up a single earned run,leading the American League in victories (22-7) and earned-run average (2.63) for the 1927 Yankees, considered the bestteam in the history of the game; and later elected to Base-ball's Hall of Fame.

In the 1920's baseball was the only game intown, and Hoyt and his colorful teammates and friends-Lefty Gomez, Joe Dugan and the game's patron sinner BabeRuth—were front page news. America was freeing itself fromthe rigidity of the war years and heading for the forbiddentreats of Prohibition and the pleasures of the flapper era. InNew York, the self-proclaimed fulcrum of the world, a young,handsome Yankee ballplayer did not lack for excitement.

Hoyt made the most of it. The ballpark byday, the bright lights of New York and the Great White Wayat night, with the prettiest faces of New York on his arm. Itwas a glorious and exhilarating time, and Hoyt himselfsummed it up better than anyone else with a statement thatstill epitomizes both the era and the man himself: "It's greatto be young, and a Yankee."

But in 1941 that career was over for Hoyt andnow, with distant rumblings of war growing louder, anotheropportunity presented the hope of a different career, base-ball broadcasting. And the man who packed his bags thatday in late November for his trip to Cincinnati was by no

means the raw, innocent teen who had stepped up to themound at the Polo Grounds in 1915 and become an instantsensation.

Two decades in a man's life bring many changes.Hoyt had been given his walking papers from the BrooklynDodgers in May, 1938. His playing days were over. By thelate 1930's he was making inroads into radio in New York.

He had spent-some winters during his Yankeeyears singing on Broadway and had made a dozen successfulguest appearances on radio shows. With his playing careeron the wane, he had capitalized on an excellent naturalvoice, an urbane manner, and the knack of telling a compel-ling story. For a while he did a sports show and a prime timesports quiz.

He began to build a reputation in New Yorkfor radio work, firmly anchoring it to his baseball founda-tion. By 1939 Hoyt was doing a pre-game show for the NewYork Yankees on WABC called "According to Hoyt," wherehe commented, with verve and wit, on the game when heplayed it and the foibles of his teammates.

But play-by-play was the real meat of baseballannouncing and Hoyt knew it. He never lacked for a senseof the dramatic moment, and no one knew the lip biting

Ellen Frell, of Chicago, is amagazine writer and an Emmy-award winning script writer foran NBC television documentary.

On January 1, 1942, WaiteHoyt moved his family to Cin-cinnati to begin his careerannouncing the CincinnatiReds' baseball games.

Queen City Heritage

tension of a close game better than he who had played in somany. He wanted to be back on the field during thosemoments, if in voice only. He yearned for the real action ofthe game underway, the emotional rush after the words"Play ball." In spite of his successful radio exposure doingprogrammed shows, the key job of play-by-play eluded him.

But a man must operate within the restraintsof his time and his era, and in the 1930's, a sports broadcastbooth was not an acceptable arena for an ex-player. Hoytrepeatedly and vocally indicated his availability for play-by-play, and just as repeatedly been turned down without evenbeing allowed to audition. Three major league teams deniedhim a shot at the job including the Yankees. Players, theyfelt, lacked the verbal ability to announce.

To the man who had always been a lover ofliterature and adept with words, this was a low blow. Broughtup to know a predicate from a participle, Hoyt had beenfrequently kidded during his playing years about his intellec-tual pursuits. "The guy was always reading,}> cracked oneex-teammate. Hoyt, who balanced his literary adventureswith countless live ones by day and by night, knew better.But there was conflict within.

The world of baseball of the 1920's and the1930's was a rough world, especially the minor leagueswhere Hoyt had cut his teeth on language and behaviorcompletely alien to his genteel upbringing at home inBrooklyn. There were moments when he had trouble recon-ciling the rugged characters and the circumstances of hislivelihood with his equally real love of culture and the arts.

And now he was being denied a chance atthose jobs because of a stereotype he had never fit. "Theytold me ballplayers don't have the vocabulary to do play-by-play," he said.

Ten years earlier when Hoyt's temper wasfirmly connected to his vocal chords, he might have come upwith some choice vocabulary in response. But now, like apitcher bearing down on a hitter, he opted to redouble hisefforts. He moved his family from their new home in NewJersey back into New York City to be closer to the pulse ofbaseball and radio. And he signed on with the prestigiousWilliam Morris Talent Agency to make sure no opportunityescaped him.

If there were parallels here with his first chanceat the big leagues years earlier, there were even bigger differ-ences. The man now evaluating his possibilities was neitheryouthful nor naive. The Waite Hoyt who left his apartmentand walked out onto Seventy-Fourth Street for his tryout inCincinnati was a forty-two-year-old retired baseball player,

the head of a family, looking toward a horizon that as far ashe could see offered little except this one good chance.

He still had the professional athlete's rush ofenergy in a crisis. And as he had done for so many othermore physical competitions earlier in his life, he began toreview strategy. This was one he could not afford to lose.

Cincinnati in 1941 had two major radio sta-tions broadcasting the Reds games, each using their ownannouncer. A third station, WKRC, was on the lookout foran especially good play-by-play announcer to solidify a newand unusual three-way arrangement among the station, theReds, and The Burger Brewing Company. The brewery hadpicked up sponsorship of the Reds games on WKRC toincrease their objectives of bringing good beer—via goodbaseball—to the Cincinnati area.

Burger was tightening up an excellent market-ing campaign over an area that encompassed several states.They planned to gain further control over the quality oftheir broadcasts by signing their soon-to-be-picked announc-er as their direct employee, avoiding station control. Theywanted a quality voice that would become a trademark forthem and their product.

During his baseball career Hoytpitched in seven World Seriesgames for the Yankees.

Summer 1988 Waite Hoyt

The final decision on an announcer would bebased on a careful review of audition discs.

Hoyt had years of experience under his belt inoutguessing opponents. He suspected that his competitorsfor this job would submit imaginary play-by-play broadcastdiscs, and his sense of theater (perfected watching his fatherperform vaudeville routines and by his own experience onBroadway) told him this was a dangerous choice. Realisticplay-by-play would be fairly slowly paced, while inventedon-the-field theatrics could not help but come across ascontrived. He had a completely different idea for showcas-ing his talent.

He went into the studio, marked his script forpauses, and began. On the disc was Hoyt's rich, energeticvoice, telling a story full of emotion and interest, sending aclear message to The Burger Brewing Company: they hadfound their man.

REISENWEBER'SNEW CRYSTAL ROOM

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Bud Koons, former President of The BurgerBrewing Company, clearly remembered Hoyt's audition disc."When all of them had been reviewed," Koons said, "Hoyt'sstood out a mile from the rest. Most people did simulatedballgames. He made an offbeat imaginative tape about alittle boy. It was his tape that won it for him."

A few days later Waite Hoyt was back in NewYork uprooting his family for the second time in six months.

This move would be to a small city in the Midwest, theQueen City, a long way both in geography and personalityfrom the bright lights of New York.

And both Hoyt and his wife Ellen were nativeNew Yorkers. Ellen had grown up on Fifth Avenue and herparents, siblings, friends, and social life were all here. Shehad spent time in Europe, but had never been west ofPittsburgh.

If the Midwest was foreign to Ellen Hoyt,baseball was even more so. Though she adored her husbandshe had never been involved in Hoyt's career plans, eitherbaseball or radio. She was hardly enthusiastic about movingso far away from her world for a purpose she did notunderstand.

Far bigger problems were upon Hoyt with theadvent of World War II. Ten days after he accepted the job,on December 7, 1941, he awoke and turned on the radio tolearn that America was at war. He cabbed to the buildingthat housed WOR Studios at Broadway and Forty-FirstStreet where he broadcast a half-hour radio show at 1:30.Later that afternoon he and Ellen walked down Fifth Ave-

While a Yankee, Hoyt spentthe winters singing on Broad-way and making guestappearances on radio shows.

^^Bi

nue and through Central Park, confused by the dozens ofrumors that were plaguing the city: fleets of enemy shipsseen outside New York Harbor, imminent attacks expectedfrom the Japanese.

Hoyt noticed the beauty of the mild Decem-ber day and he felt the idea of war to be almost surrealistic.But the reality was there and it was not pleasant.

To this man about to change his home, hiswork, and his life, questions came flooding in. The future ofthe country was in doubt. Would America survive this war,and in what form? What would happen to baseball if the warcontinued. Would Roosevelt decide to ban the sport? Ifbaseball survived, with most able-bodied men wanting toenlist, who would play it?

Would he be out of a job tomorrow?Hoyt moved his wife, small son, and belong-

ings to Cincinnati January i, 1942, with great enthusiasmand equal trepidation. For the second time in his life he wasstepping up to a new career under the cloud of a wartimeAmerica full of ambiguity about the value of sports duringwartime and a much deeper uncertainty about the futureitself.

Everybody in Cincinnati knew who Waite Hoytwas, but not everybody believed their good luck. Many feltHoyt was a temporary figure in their town, a New Yorkerwho would reap the rewards of a high visibility job and thendisappear back into the East. It was a town not known for itsquick acceptance of outsiders, and Hoyt felt, not for the firsttime in his life, to be on the outside looking in.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt allowed baseballto continue during the war years as a distraction for those athome and "a way to help the country's morale." But the waythe Cincinnati Reds had been playing for the last two yearswas hardly uplifting. The Reds had won the pennant in1939 and 1940 but there had been little to get enthusiasticabout since then. In 1941 and 1942 they finished well out ofthe running.

The Burger Brewing Company was concerned.Not only was their team putting in a poor showing, butwartime rationing had forced them to reallocate theirresources and disrupt distribution. They tiptoed throughthe first months of the war hoping things would improve.

Up in the broadcast booth things were noeasier. Hoyt found it difficult to adjust to two other sports-

His broadcasts emanated froma booth atop the grandstand atCrosley Field. It was open tothe weather, freezing on manyan opening day and drippingwith humidity in August.

Summer 1988 Waite Hoyt

casters announcing the same game at the same time he was.It was often even harder for his companions. Frequentlythey were the same reporters that stations sent out to covernews, weather, and society dances. Although one or twocould report a game with competence, too often whetherthey knew anything about baseball was often a matter ofluck. Hoyt found himself instructing them, carefully so as tonot embarrass them, about the subtleties of the game andthe nuances of play. As usual, he was a stickler for accuracy.

By now Hoyt had signed on with Burgerdirectly, and was, for all intents and purposes, the entirebroadcast team for the Cincinnati Reds. His broadcastsemanated from a booth atop the grandstand at CrosleyField. It was open to the weather, freezing on many anopening day and hot in August, but it was close to the fans,the players, and the action. "Crosley Field," as Hoyt said,"bred intimacy."

Across a five-state area Reds fans would turnon radios and hear: "Three o'clock and baseball is on the air.Good afternoon fans, this is Waite Hoyt for Burger Beer,bringing you the Cincinnati Reds."

He had a strong, rich voice, applied his Brook-lyn accent with a full vocabulary, and showed no reluctanceto describe exactly what he saw on the field. Somethingcompelling about his delivery made you want to hear himout through the rest of the story to learn how it all came out.His voice had the immediacy and excitement of a man whoknew what he was talking about.

He reported the games with strict honesty. Ifa player booted the ball, that's how it came out of Hoyt'smike, not as a bad bounce. He would never use euphemismsto describe an error. This approach was not always wel-comed in those years when the Reds were making more thantheir share of errors. But Hoyt respected the integrity of thegame and the intelligence of the fans and refused to repaintreality.

Above the little table where he penciled in thestarting lineup and computed the statistics as the game wenton, he pasted a code of broadcast ethics. He was careful notto single out individuals unless for the positive. Out of theroutinely mediocre play of those months there were never-theless star performers and good moments, and Hoyt madethe most of them.

In spite of—some thought because of—the factthat Hoyt refused to cheerlead for a lackluster team, hebegan to build a following. John Murdough, assistant to BillDe Witt (President and General Manager of the Reds) at thattime remembers trying to get Hoyt to change his style. Hoyt

had described, all too effectively, how the Reds had taken adrubbing in Chicago.

"I said to him, 'Waite, you could have tonedthat down. Try to help us a little, will ya?' and he yelled, 'Ican't build up the team when we're getting beat right andleft! Not with scores like 10-2!'

"We had a few words then," Murdough remem-bers. "We fought about it. But the more I think about it, hedid the right thing. Cheerleading interferes with reporting agame. It wouldn't have mattered what the ballclub or any-one else urged him to do. He had an allegiance to the fans togive the best description he possibly could of the game."

And the best description, Hoyt felt, was voicedin the past tense. "For one reason only; Accuracy," as Hoytemphasized many times. Not for him the pseudo-action ofthe present tense.

He was accepted quickly by the players, whorealized he was accurate, fair, and disinclined to criticizethem. They hung around for pitching suggestions, whichwere always given with deference to the coaches and anadmonition to check with them before trying out any changes.

Murdough continued: "Sincere athletes havea great respect for other athletes. You could always tell theguys on the ballclub who were the good ones: they wantedto talk to any athlete they felt was superior. They alwayswanted to talk to Waite."

"Pete Rose was one of those. He loved Waite.He talked to him constantly about the differences in thegame between his day and now, and about Ty Cobb. Hefound out a lot of things."

Road games presented Hoyt with a complete-ly different set of problems. For the first ten years with theclub, Hoyt did not travel with the team, but broadcast froma ticker-tape that clicked out the plays, largely in code, to hisbroadcast table in a studio.

He described the plays with the same immedi-acy and spontaneity of someone watching the action, but itwas a more difficult job. He explained the problem to peoplein later years: the difference between the smell of the openair and feel of a ballpark, and the sterility of four walls andreading the plays in code from a piece of paper. Without theaction in front of you, he said, "You have to create your ownexcitement."

But create excitement he did, and even thosefew who remembered that he was not broadcasting from thegame itself came under the spell of his recreations of theaction on the field. It seemed that he was right there, watch-ing every play, reporting what he saw. The immediacy of

these recreations was compelling.He was building a following for his broadcasts

and making friends both in and out of the Reds' organiza-tion during those early years. He was "well-liked and acceptedeverywhere" as one veteran of those years put it. He had afeel for people. "Waite did a lot of stuff that people didn'tknow about. He'd go out of his way to be good to a kid whojust joined the ballclub, to help make him feel at home," saidone member of the Reds' organization who worked withhim those years.

But Hoyt, so adept at making others feel athome, still felt himself on trial. As with many self-assuredpublic figures he had a less certain inner side. Even in hisearlier years of remarkable baseball success he often won-dered if he should have not chosen a different career path.He was still uncertain of his acceptance in Cincinnati, inspite of the fact that by 1944 he had purchased a home andsettled into the life of a permanent resident. He was gainingground every month as a popular historic figure, but theview from the gallery of witnesses from that era too oftendoes not match his view from within. It was sometimeduring those years that the drinking problems that hadoccasionally surfaced during his playing years reappearedwith new vehemence and Hoyt became an alcoholic.

Sober for weeks at a time, and somehow ableto not let his drinking interfere with his broadcasting, hekept up the charade for a number of months with only hiswife and close associates suspecting a problem. But on June21, 1945, he disappeared and was reported missing by Ellen,who contrived a story that he suffered occasional bouts ofamnesia as the result of being hit on the head by a baseball inearlier years. His disappearance made front page news.

Two days later, front page news again reportedhim as having been found and returned to his home wherehe was resting "under a doctor's care." The story reachedNew York, and his ex-teammates, most of whom had suf-fered the excesses of liquor side by side with Hoyt duringthe 1920's reacted with predictable humor to the idea thatHoyt, known to have an excellent memory, had been sub-jected to amnesia. Babe Ruth wired him: "Never Heard ofAmnesia. Must Be New Brand."

But there was little humor in the reevaluationof his life that Hoyt chose to make during the next few weeksunder the guidance of two close friends and AlcoholicsAnonymous. He admitted, first to himself, and then one dayin the summer of 1945 to his fans and his public that he wasan alcoholic. He knew the admission might cost him hispublic or his job but he was under no delusions. Alcoholism

Queen City Heritage

was already costing him his health, his marriage, and his life.He braced for the response. And it came:

support flooding in from people across the country. Oneman close to Hoyt remembers "People loved him after thedrinking problem was out of the way because they knew whata battle he'd had, and he'd overcome it. Before that he wasaccepted, after that you might say he was almost canonized."

Not so curiously, the only reservation abouthis admission of alcoholism came behind closed doors atBurger, where executives worried that an admitted alcoholicwas hardly the spokesman a beer company needed. ButBurger was carried along by a wave of public support thatwas completely behind Hoyt, and strong public admirationfor his nerve in admitting what was, in those days, an unac-ceptable social problem with overtones of real stigma. Theidea of anyone else announcing was quickly dropped in theface of pro-Hoyt momentum that grew larger and larger asthe months went by.

In the new light of sobriety, Hoyt reviewedhis life and found it wanting in some respects. He had reliedon close friends and the organization of Alcoholics Anony-mous to support him as he carefully reconstructed his think-ing, and now he was ready to return the favor from a posi-tion of strength.

From that point on he gave personal and emo-tional help to individuals who came to A.A. In 1946 hestood up before a packed room and delivered a speech whichwas remembered as an emotional high point in the lives ofthose present that evening. In it Hoyt admitted the fears hefelt when he exposed this weakness to his public and privatelife, the loss of some "friends" and the patient love of others,the gradual improvement in his life that had resulted once headmitted he was an alcoholic:

From my standpoint I believe that you attain a cer-tain awareness of the plenitude of life's offerings.... little delightswhich seemed so trivial, so beneath our notice in our drinkingdays. We believe in the sincerity of spirit behind a compliment.We learn to accept a rebuke, or advice. We become tolerant. Wecome to look upon the world as a friendly place. We come to seethe reasons for the existence of many things.

Better than all else—the truth is refreshing. Forsome fortunate reason—fortunate for us—people are most willingto help someone who is making a comeback.

You see before you an alcoholic who has attainedsome measure of recovery. Tou^e heard admissions by him abouthis drinking days, and I imagine you tacitly admit there hasbeen some improvement in him. Therefore you borrow from himsome of his confidence and, I hope, desire.

Summer 1988 Waite Hoyt

For eleven years Hoyt was the Reds' broadcastteam, and the lack of regular backup announcers resulted insome unusual programming. On September 9, 1946, Hoytbroadcast three baseball games simultaneously. Six telegraphoperators took the copy and four staff men at the stationkept the accounts running as Hoyt voiced the play-by-playplay for three critical games in the last days of the season.He announced nonstop for five and one-half hours withonly an occasional bite of sandwich and whiff of somesmelling salts to keep him going.

Poor backup programming forced Hoyt intothese odd, sometimes humorous situations like the recordthree game, five and one-half hour broadcast, but it alsoopened the way for what became his on air trademark.During games when rain delayed the play, Hoyt beganreminiscing, telling stories that were remnants of his days inthe major and minor leagues, stories filled with the colorfulcharacters that shared train berths and escapades with him inthe late teens and '20's and '30's.

His skill as a storyteller was considerable. Hehad vivid on-the-air presence, and the excitement he showedin reliving these moments made the transition from hismemory out onto the airwaves with no loss of immediacy.He took you back to a hotel lobby in New Orleans in 1919,to a wild card-game in a dusty traincar on a road trip. Here-fought Yankee brawls on the field over a knockdownpitch, described how Babe Ruth had barely escaped a crowdof ladies who stormed the locker room.

The stories were never about his own gloriesin the game, but were instead tales told on himself or humor-ous evaluations of hundreds of aspects of the art of playingbaseball. Umpires, rules, fines, player trades, ballpark dol-lies, uniforms, and the thousand and one incidents of hisown active and exciting life all became part of the experienceof baseball in Cincinnati. The entire 1927 Yanks includingthe Babe, Miller Huggins, and the dozens and dozens ofothers they encountered emerged from Hoyt's mike duringair time to fill the hours and the summers of the listeners inCincinnati. They were insights from other years spent insideother ballparks in another America, prewar and vibrant.They drew upon characters and events spiced with a vocabu-lary not usually applied to the world of sports, and alwaystempered with humor.

He had a hearty, boisterous laugh that wouldbuild from a soft nearly sinister chuckle, as if the scene hewas describing was right there in front of him and he couldn'thelp marveling at it, then building to a crescendo of "Ha-aha-aha-aha-aha!," carrying the listeners along with its wavesoflaughs.

Hoyt's rain delay stories, begun as a way topass the time until the main event could be resumed, becamethe main event themselves. "I knew people who didn't give adamn about baseball who would turn Hoyt on when theyheard he was doing a rain delay," one fan said. It would havebeen a close decision, during those years when the Reds wereat the bottom of the league whether people listened to

For several seasons, Hoyt didnot travel to away games butbroadcast from inside thestudio using a ticker-tape thatclicked out the plays.

Queen City Heritage

Hoyt's broadcasts for his reminiscences or for the action.You could hear another era through Hoyt's

on-the-air conversations. He was a master of anecdote well-placed, of humor that was never caustic. At the mike he wasan athlete with perfect grammar, a Yankee with a love offastballs and frolic, a gentleman in the locker room.

In the late summer of 1948 Hoyt was broad-casting over the wire when an assistant in the studio handedhim a telegram that Babe Ruth was dead. The assistantreported later that Hoyt was visibly shaken but interruptedthe game only to repeat the sad news to the fans and tomention that if they'd like to stay with the station after thegame was over he would say a few words about the Babe.

He began simply, remembering the good timeswith his teammate and friends, and those few words grew, asthe minutes went by, into a eulogy that few other men couldhave delivered. As word flashed around Cincinnati thatHoyt was on the air speaking about his recently departed

friend, the audience snowballed. It was baseball's most elo-quent player paying tribute to baseball's most remarkableplayer in a broadcast interrupted more than once with theemotion of the moment, tearful laughs over the rough bearof a man who brought baseball fully into America's con-sciousness. Hoyt signed off more than two hours later to avirtual avalanche of phone calls, telegrams, and letters, grati-tude from people who well knew they would never haveanother chance to get to know Ruth so well.

Hoyt answered each telegram and letter, andwith characteristic modesty:

I assure you it was not a feat on my part, nor atremendous accomplishment as my subject automatically suppliedits own appeal. I merely had to create.

I suppose my sincerity carried some weight as it wasfrom the heart. After it was over, I did not realize I had doneanything special. I merely talked as so many players have talkedabout the Babe down through the years and, I guess, will continueto talk about him. May I add, broadcast is a pleasure when theresponse is so human and gratifying.

It makes one realize that all of us share the samesentiments about so many things. I try to carry that thought in allmy broadcasts.

Waite Hoyt was a pallbearer at Ruth's funeralat St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York that September. Whilecarrying the coffin out into the heat of the afternoon, JoeDugan, another pallbearer and ex-Yankee, leaned over andsaid to Hoyt in a soft voice, "Boy, I could sure use a beer."

Hoyt answered with a mischievous grin, "Socould the Babe, Joe, so could the Babe!"

Hoyt told an interviewer later that he felt thatthe Babe Ruth eulogy had been the point at which hebecame a true Cincinnatian. As he entered the 19 5 o's he wasmore at home with himself than he had ever been, thoughthat realization on his part lay perhaps years behind thereality of his acceptance.

Broadcasting was beginning to change. Hoytdid the first TV/radio simultaneous broadcast as the newmedium began to encroach on territory previously so firmlyin the hands of radio. There were others sharing the mikewith him now, like Jack Moran(i95 3-i96o) and later GeneKelly and Claude Sullivan. The behind-the-scenes camara-derie worked its way out over the airwaves, and audienceswould be privy to the devious playfulness of Hoyt. Hewould wait until Moran, who enjoyed a hearty appetite,took a big bite of sandwich and began to chew, then Hoytwould instantly land on Moran for an on-the-air opinionand chuckle heartily while he struggled to swallow or sink

Waite Hoyt broadcast a twohour eulogy to his good friendand teammate, Babe Ruth (leftHoyt, right Babe Ruth).

Waite Hoyt's rain delay storiesbecame so popular with seriousfans and casual listeners alikethat a record album of Waite'sbest stories was issued.

Summer 1988

into dead airwaves.In 1953 Hoyt was asked to broadcast the

All-Star game and two years later he added a winter sportsshow to his schedule. By this time the crowds that pressedaround him for autographs were as thick as those surround-ing the players. In 1956 WSAI, by then home of the Reds'broadcasts, celebrated Hoyt's 2,500th broadcast and fifteenyears as spokesman for the Reds.

Cincinnati literally danced in the streets whenthe Reds took the pennant in 1961. They had waited morethan two decades for a celebration like this, and when Hoytand the players returned from their road trip victorious, thecrowds were ready for them. The party went on into thenight, with Hoyt on an open-air stage on Fountain Squaresinging songs from his vaudeville days to jubilant crowds.Several days later he broadcast the World Series, when theReds lost to the Yankees (4-1).

By 196 5 escalating costs had caused Burger torelease its sponsorship of the games. The replacement spon-sor wanted to sign Hoyt on again, but Hoyt had a fierce

Waite Hoyt 11

loyalty to Burger. They had stood by him during the years ofhis drinking, before A.A., and they had stood by him after-wards when the thought of a non-drinker representing abeer company was ample reason to turn the job over toanother. He could not think of divorcing himself from theorganization that had stuck by him during those times.

Burger was part of his professional life. Dur-ing his broadcast of the World Series in 1961 he had, out oflong habit, announced "This is the Burger Beer Broadcast-ing Network" when the game had been sponsored not byBurger but by Gillette. "We owe Gillette one in next year'sSeries," he joked. This, after all, was the announcer whodescribed home-run balls hit by the Reds as "heading forBurgerville."

Cincinnati celebrated Waite Hoyt Day on Sep-tember 25, 1965. On the day that Burger surrendered itssponsorship of the games, Hoyt pitched his last broadcastafter twenty-three years and more than 4,000 games. It wasOctober 3, 1965, and it marked the end of an era in Cincinnati.

Though Hoyt had minor stints in broadcast-

WAITE HOYT

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•& r.

Queen City Heritage

ing later in the 1960's and 1970's, his days at the mike wereeffectively over. In 1969 he was elected to Baseball's Hall ofFame and his vocal skills did not fail him. He gave a speechthat brought the audience of thousands present at the induc-tion ceremonies to its feet. It was not possible to walk downa street in Cincinnati with Hoyt without witnessing howmuch he meant to its people.

In broadcasting Hoyt had found a way to mixbaseball and brains, the physical and mental sides of hisbeing that had conflicted in earlier years. And perhaps themicrophone connecting him, the speaker, with the never-ending stories from a distant time was the most effective wayhe could find to be a part of the public and the fans, yet retainsome of the solitude he loved.

There are men in whose actions you can readthe pulse of an era, men who wear, in their voices and ontheir faces, the map of a different time, the romance, if youwill, of events past. And most baseball fans are romantics. Tolove this game you must value emotions, tactile sensationslike the feel of leather, the smell of cut grass, the dramas anddilemmas that are part and parcel of the game.

It was all there in Hoyt. A predilection forlife's high points, an appreciation of human nature, an exal-tation of the common man. It went from him to all of uslistening out there, waiting for his laugh and his perfectlychosen words to make us part of the game that is America'ssweetheart.

(Excerpted from a book in process, "Waite Hoyt"by Ellen Frell, Copyright 1988. All rights reserved.)

WAITE CHARLES HOYT"SCHOOLBOY"

NEW YORK YANKEE PITCHER 1921-1930,LIFETIME RECORD: 237 GAMES WON, 182

GAMES LOST, ,566 AVERAGE, EARNED RUNAVERAGE 3 3 9 . PITCHED 3 GAMES IN 1921WORLD SERIES AND GAVE NO EARNED RUNS

ALSO PITCHED FOR BOSTON, DETROIT ANDPHILADELPHIA A.L.AND BROOKLYN,NEW YORK AND PITTSBURGH N. L.

Jack Moran shared broadcast-ing duties with Hoyt from1953-1960. In this pictureMoran is on the left, secondbaseman Johnny Temple in thecenter, and Hoyt on the right.

In 1969 Hoyt was elected toBaseball's Hall of Fame.