Paul Hoynes has spent more than four decades chronicling Cleveland baseball for The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com. This weekend, the longtime Guardians beat writer will receive the highest honor a media member can receive from the Baseball Hall of Fame; The Baseball Writers' Association of America Career Excellence Award.
Ideastream Public Media's commentator Terry Pluto said few people understand just how demanding the baseball beat really is.
“I say that as somebody who did baseball for five and a half years and basically quit, even though I have a pretty good work ethic and everything, I just couldn't keep doing it," Pluto said. "(It’s) 162 games a year."
Pluto said Hoynes’ workload was on full display this past weekend. Smoke from Canadian wildfires postponed Friday night’s game, setting up a day-night doubleheader Saturday that stretched late into the night because of a rain delay.
“You could love baseball, but sometimes the requirements of the job are really difficult and you could become very jaded and bitter on that job,” Pluto said. “Think about doing Cleveland baseball for 43 years. I think he's written something like 6,000 baseball stories.”
Hoynes grew up in Cleveland Heights. Pluto said like him, Hoynes idolized Cleveland sportswriting legends including Hal Lebovitz, Bob August, Danny Coughlin and Chuck Heaton.
“These guys are, to us, journalistic gods, and he thought, 'boy, it would be just great to do that',” Pluto said.
Hoynes worked his way up through local newspapers before joining The Plain Dealer's baseball beat in 1983.
“To be able to have a certain freshness about doing the job is remarkable to me," Pluto said. "He tells these stories, self-effacing stories, about himself like, as he says, ‘Writing is about the only thing I could do,’ and he kept telling me about he went out for the baseball team at the old Cathedral Latin School and he (was) cut from that,” Pluto said.
After battling stomach cancer in 2022, Hoynes came back to continue covering the Guardians.
Pluto said Hoynes has settled into the rhythm of the baseball season, which helps explain why he's stayed on the beat for so long.
“They hand you a schedule and you sort of know where you're gonna be the next six months by looking at the schedule,” Pluto said.
Pluto said Hoynes doesn’t plan on slowing down.
"I joked with Paul, I said, 'Look, you can't quit,'" Pluto said. "'Well, why not? Why not?' I said, 'If you do, I am now the oldest guy at Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.' He just started laughing. (Hoynes) says, 'You know, sometimes I'm around the house and I get sort of antsy in the offseason, and my wife, Jackie, will say, 'Don't you have something you're supposed to be doing?' And he's just like waiting for baseball to start."
Paul Hoynes is now the fourth Baseball Hall of Fame writer from Northeast Ohio, joining Gordon Cobbledick, Hal Lebovitz and Sheldon Ocker. Add Hall of Fame broadcaster Tom Hamilton, and Pluto said there's a reason this region keeps producing great baseball storytellers.
"It's kind of a big, small town or a small, big town, however you want to put it, where you get major league sports, but you don't have to deal with the pain of living in Los Angeles or Chicago or New York (or) any of those places where it's just harder to get around," Pluto said. "So, we're grateful for that. Also, I really believe the fans here are just more avid, more fun. Sports is more important to them, and therefore what we do is more important to the fans. That's one of the things, too. Paul is very good at answering emails from fans, and he just gets a kick out of the fact that people care about what he writes."
The Baseball Writers' Association of America Career Excellence Award ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, July 25, during Hall of Fame Weekend, two days before the players' induction ceremony.
