Paul Hoynes, a Cleveland baseball writing institution for the past five decades, has now been honored with the highest distinction his profession bestows.
On Dec. 9 at the Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced that Hoynes was elected the 2026 winner of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award. He will be honored with the award that is presented annually to a sportswriter “for meritorious contributions to baseball writing” during the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s Induction Weekend next July 24-27 in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Paul Hoynes was honored with the 2026 BBWAA Career Excellence Award, presented annually to a sportswriter “for meritorious contributions to baseball writing.” (David Petkiewicz/Cleveland.com)
“They told me last night when I was writing. I did not think I was going to make it. I just missed last year when Thomas Boswell got it, and I’m looking at this ballot with Scott Miller and Tom Verducci on it. I just didn’t think I was going to get in,” said Hoynes in a phone conversation from the Winter Meetings where he is reporting for Cleveland.com. “Jack O’Connell (BBWAA secretary/treasurer) came up to me about 8 o’clock, when I’m writing, and said, ‘You’re our guy.’ And I literally started shaking. I was so surprised. I couldn’t even dial the phone to call my wife because my hands were shaking so bad.”
Of the 407 ballots, including two blanks, cast by BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years’ service, Hoynes was named on 177 in becoming the 77th winner of the award since its inception in 1962. Finishing second with 128 votes was the late Scott Miller. Tom Verducci, writer for Sports Illustrated and reporter for MLB Network and FOX, received 100 votes.
Hoynes joins a prestigious cavalcade of writers previously honored, including such luminaries as Ring Lardner (1963), Grantland Rice (1966), Damon Runyon (1967), Fred Lieb (1972), Shirley Povich (1975), Red Smith (1976), Jim Murray (1987), Wendell Smith (1993), Roger Angell (2014) and Claire Smith (2017).
“I mean, you look at those names, it’s unbelievable that I’m considered with them. I don’t think I belong with them,” Hoynes said. “It’s incredible. It’s mind-boggling.”
Paul Hoynes’ tenure as a writer on the Indians and Guardians beat has spanned 13 Cleveland managers and seven general managers dating back to the 1983 season. (Chuck Crow/The Plain Dealer)
Hoynes, 74, becomes the fourth winner from the Cleveland market joining Gordon Cobbledick (1977), Hal Lebovitz (1999) and Sheldon Ocker (2018).
“My buddy Sheldon Ocker is in. We were on the beat for 25-30 years together. This is a really cool honor to be in the Hall with him,” he said. “American League baseball has been played in Cleveland since 1901, so I’m privileged to be in that group. I knew Hal (Lebovitz) really well. He was the dean of writers in Cleveland and really well respected.”
When Ocker was contacted, he said regarding Hoynes being honored: “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. He deserves to be in. He’s done his job a long time. He does it as good or better than anyone. He never has a bad day where he says, ‘Well, I’ll worry about it tomorrow.’ He’s very diligent, he’s a great reporter, and he’s a really good guy.
“When he smells a story, he doesn’t quit. He just goes after it and goes after it and goes after it. He’s just very dogged about getting to the bottom of things.”
Sheldon Ocker, left, and Paul Hoynes are among the four Cleveland writers recognized with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s most prestigious honor since the award was first bestowed in 1962. (Cleveland Guardians)
Hoynes, born and raised in Cleveland, has been the beat writer for the Indians/Guardians since 1983.
“I wasn’t a very good student, and writing was the only thing I could do halfway decent,” Hoynes said. “I always liked sports. I wasn’t very good at them, but I always liked watching and playing and writing about them. So, that was my goal. I was lucky that way. I think even in high school, I knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t vacillate or change course. I wanted to write. I wanted to be a sportswriter. I didn’t think I’d be a baseball writer, but it didn’t matter.”
Eventually, Hoynes received a journalism degree from Marquette University. He then would cover sports in and around Ohio for a variety of newspapers before landing at the Plain Dealer in Cleveland. It’s been reported that he has covered more than 6,000 games and set the byline record for the Plain Dealer.
“My first job was with the Painesville Telegraph in Ohio. Then I went to the (Willoughby) News-Herald in Northeast Ohio. Then I did the Browns for the Cleveland Press. The Press folded, and in ‘83 I went back to the Telegraph and I was doing the Browns there,” he said. “And then the baseball job at the News-Herald opened up, so I went there. And then I ended up at the Plain Dealer after two years. I’ve been there since, though now it’s also called Cleveland.com.
“I grew up in Cleveland Heights, went to grade school there, high school there. I never went out of state for a newspaper job with no regrets at all. I’ve traveled a lot, and I’ve seen a lot of different cities, but Cleveland is home, and I couldn’t be happier there. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
Among Paul Hoynes’ thousands of assignments for the Plain Dealer was covering the first Opening Day at Jacobs Field, now Progressive Field, in 1994. (Cleveland Guardians)
Though he has covered high school sports, the Cleveland Browns and the Cleveland Cavaliers, it’s baseball where he landed.
“I just like it,” he said. “I like that there’s a game every day and you’re not filling time between, like in the NFL, Sunday’s game and next Sunday’s game,” he said. “And there’s the access, which is what’s really impressed me. The players are available, the coaches are available, the managers are available. Every day you can find these guys; you can talk to them. The access is the thing that attracted me to baseball and has kept me going.
“I started on the beat in 1983 and I’m still out there. When you can’t do anything else, I guess you just keep doing the same thing.”
Hoynes attributes his longevity on the baseball beat to his family.
“You’ve really got to have a pretty stable home life,” Hoynes explained. “My wife, we’ve been married for over 50 years, and she raised our two kids while I was on the road. She put up with a lot of stuff while I was roaring around the country, but she knew I really loved the job. You really have to have a pretty solid support system, or you’re not going to be able to do this job for as long as I’ve done it.”
Paul Hoynes will be honored at the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation on July 25, 2026, in Cooperstown. (Cleveland Guardians)
Asked if there’s a particular moment that sticks out from his 42 years covering the Indians/Guardians, he instantly recalled Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, a heartbreaking 3-2 loss to the Florida Marlins in 11 innings.
“Charlie Nagy was supposed to start the game. He was on full rest. But they had Jaret Wright start, who was a hotter pitcher,” Hoynes recalled. “They had a 2-1 lead going into the bottom of the ninth, then the Marlins tie it. And then in the 11th inning, after they had brought in Nagy in the 10th, and Édgar Rentería sends a liner right to center field to win it for the Marlins and lose it for Cleveland.
“And I just thought the irony that you see that all the time in baseball; a guy that was supposed to start ends up coming out of the bullpen, an unfamiliar role, and loses a game. It just was an extra kick in the teeth in that series.”
Before he headed back to covering the Winter Meetings, Hoynes did want to add how much being honored with the BBWAA Career Excellence Award means to him.
“I was overcome. I had tears in my eyes when I got the news. I had to text my wife because I couldn’t work the phone. She calls me back, and I started choking up telling her,” he said. “If you want something so bad, you might not get it. But I never thought I’d be here.”
Bill Francis is the senior research and writing specialist at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum