Waite Hoyt

An American right-handed pitcher in major league baseball, he was one of the dominant pitchers of the 1920s, and the winningest pitcher for the New York Yankees during that decade.

Hoyt was born in Brooklyn, New York and despite being a Dodgers fan, he was signed to a professional contract by New York Giants manager John McGraw when he was only 15 and was immediately nicknamed "The Schoolboy Wonder."

After a brief stint with the Giants, Hoyt was sent to the Boston Red Sox where 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 the course of his career, Hoyt would win six American League pennants with the Yankees and one with the Philadelphia Athletics. 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).

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 in 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 off-season 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 almost 10 years.

After retiring as a player, Hoyt went into broadcasting. During a stint as the host of "Grandstand and Bandstand" on WMCA, he tried to audition for the Yankees, but the sponsor (Wheaties cereal) vetoed him. The view at the time was that former players didn't have enough of a vocabulary to be successful broadcasters.

Dodgers' voice Red Barber, however, thought more of Hoyt's abilities and hired him as color commentator and host of the pre- and post-game shows in 1940. After two years, he became the play-by-play voice of the Cincinnati Reds, a post he held for 24 years. He became as much a celebrity with the Reds as he was while a player. He was well known for calling games exclusively in past tense, which was and still is unusual for sportscasting. Where most baseball announcers would say, "Here's the pitch!" Hoyt would say, "There was the pitch!" A typical Hoyt call went, "The shortstop fielded it (the ball), threw it to first, and the runner beat the throw." He told author Curt Smith that he felt using past tense was more accurate because "as I speak to you, what happened a moment ago is gone."

On June 10, 2007, the Cincinnati Reds honored Hoyt, Marty Brennaman, and Joe Nuxhall with replica microphones that will hang on the wall near the radio booth. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969.