The Truth About Babe Ruth

New Memoir Sheds Light on the Great Bambino

LINCOLN, Neb., April 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today is a major milestone for Yankees ace pitcher and Babe Ruth buddy Waite Hoyt – even though Hoyt's been dead for almost 40 years. His memoir, "Schoolboy: The Untold Journey of a Yankees Hero" (University of Nebraska Press) arrives in bookstores nationwide and on Amazon.

Often remembered as "Babe Ruth's best friend," Hoyt was a staunch keeper of the Great Bambino's flame.  

"Babe Ruth was so misunderstood and misrepresented by so many," Hoyt wrote. "To begin with, he was not a carousing bum, nor was he fat, and he did not have pipestem legs."

Hoyt continued: "I saw Babe naked many times, and his chest was as thick as his stomach. He drank no more than an insurance agent—and less than many sportswriters during the prohibition era."

"Schoolboy" also divulges less flattering stories about Ruth, often involving women packing pearl-handled pistols. Hoyt's relationship with Ruth was not always ideal either, as evidenced by a locker room brawl between the two men and two years when they didn't speak to each other.

Hoyt claimed he did not know exactly why he and Ruth became estranged during that time but suggested it may have had something to do with dating the same showgirl.

In "Schoolboy," author Tim Manners captures Hoyt's jaw-dropping journey entirely in his own words – 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. 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.

His relationship with Ruth and his stories about their time together on the Yankees are also an enduring feature of Hoyt's legacy.

"To know the Big Fellow was a privilege," Hoyt wrote, "and to play with him was an even greater honor."

The admiration was mutual. 

"If Hoyt can't get 'em out," Ruth once said, "nobody can."

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.

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/schoolboyhoyt

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Schoolboy-Untold-Journey-Yankees-Hero/dp/1496236793/ref=rvi_d_sccl_1/139-9875451-7745230

Book Website:
http://schoolboyhoyt.com

University of Nebraska Press:
https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496236791/

Contact:

Tim Manners
(203) 227-6004
[email protected]
http://schoolboyhoyt.com

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SOURCE University of Nebraska Press