CHATHAM — As a bat boy for the Chatham A’s, Matt Hyde spent many a summer day watching the nation’s elite college baseball players run, hit, field and throw. Twenty years later, he’s still watching. Only now he gets paid to do it. 

The 32-year old Hyde, an area scout for the New York Yankees, recently returned to the Cape and his hometown of Chatham, in his occupational pursuit of pro league prospects. 

During his homecoming, it was hard for Hyde, who was sitting in the Chatham stands and gazing wide-eyed at the field below last Saturday morning, not to take a sentimental stroll down memory lane. After all, it was right here – at Veterans Field – where Jimmy Hoog, a relief pitcher on the 1987 A’s, gave Hyde some life-altering advice after learning the young lad was a straight-A student and coasting through school.

“Jimmy said to me, ‘We’re here playing in this league to challenge ourselves against the best, and you too have to challenge yourself against the best, because that’s the only way to find out how good you really are,’” Hyde recalled. 

Heeding those words of wisdom, he enrolled at Phillips Andover, graduated from the prestigious prep school, and later earned his degree in communications from the University of Michigan, where he also received an education in baseball as a four-year catcher for the Wolverines.

A year out of school, Hyde rejoined the A’s as an assistant coach on the 1996 Cape League championship team. He recalled winning the title with perfect clarity, but for Hyde, the fondest memory is of donning the red, white and blue jersey.

“Putting that uniform on was like putting on the Yankee uniform,” said Hyde. “When you put on the Yankee pinstripes (as much as people don’t like the Yankees out here) you know you’re wearing the same uniform that was worn by the greatest players in the history of the game. It stands for winning, it stands for excellence, and the very top in the game. Putting on that Chatham uniform was the same thing for me.”

Winning Cape League gold brought Hyde back to Michigan where he became the youngest fulltime assistant Division One coach in the nation. He helped lead the school to the Big Ten Championship in 1997 and 1999, and beginning in 2001, he served as Harvard’s recruiting coordinator and hitting coach for five years, before embarking on an itinerant talent search for the Yanks. 

Hyde, who likens his job to that of an information gatherer, dispelled the myth that being a scout involves leisurely touring the nation’s ballparks with a scorecard in one hand, a radar gun in the other. The odometer in his Dodge Charger, which has flipped over 30,000 miles since December, and the hundreds of scouting reports he’s required to write up monthly, are proof of the demanding nature of the job.

Hyde also dismissed the idea scouts are only interested in guys with gaudy stats. On the contrary, deciding which blue chips to draft, particularly those who are showcased in the Cape League, has more to do with a player’s character, and if they can maintain an even-keel demeanor, whether they’re streaking or slumping. 

“It’s not so much the numbers we’re concerned with, but a player’s make-up,” said Hyde. “You want to know how they handle adversity, do they show up for their summer job, and were they respectful of their host families. These are the questions that scouting directors are interested in, because we’re investing millions of dollars in those top few picks. How a player carries himself here in the Cape League is the closest indicator for us if a guy can or can’t succeed in professional baseball.”

Though personalities differ, Hyde said by and large today’s players look and act the same as they did during his childhood years, and the aura of the league itself has also remained unchanged by time’s hands. Which makes for a rather comforting return home. 

“Coming down here and covering the league is great because it was such a big part of my life,” said Hyde. “What makes it special for me is being able to spend time again around the players, who are challenging themselves at the highest level. It goes to show you why this league is so special and why the people in these towns hold onto it so much."

by Eric Adler
Eric Adler