William Ellsworth Hoy (abt.1862-1961) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree (original) (raw)

Biography

William was born about 1862. He was the son of Jacob Hoy and Rebecca Hoffman. He contracted meningitis when he was three years of age, which left him deaf. Since he had learned to speak at this age he was able to talk, but others reported his voice was like a "rusty squeek", and he also could read lips, but only 40% of sounds in the English language are visible on the lips in good conditions. William attended the Ohio School for the Deaf and graduated as class valedictorian, After graduation he opened a shoe repair shop and played baseball on the weekends. His first professional baseball contract was in 1886 with an Oshkosh, Wisconsin team. Nicknames were common in the leagues and as the third deaf person to join the Leagues, he was nicknamed Dummy, which referred to his deafness not his intelligence. Dummy earned an award in 1888 with the National League for stolen bases and was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. He set an MLB record on June 9, 1889 when In one game, he threw out 3 runners at home plate who had tried to score from second on base hits. In Chicago, Dummy played center field and was described as a first class fielder having a "wicked throwing arm" and a small strike zone because of his short height of 5' 4".

The origins of hand signals in baseball is difficult to pinpoint, but the majority of historians agree that the practice was initiated by deaf players, who could not hear the umpire's call. Dummy was one of these players who were instrumental in requesting the umpires to provide hand signals. He also taught many of the players on his teams America Sign Language, so they could communicate with ease. After his career in baseball, Dummy worked for awhile in Akron, Ohio as a supervisor for deaf workers in the Goodyear Rubber Plant during World War I or The Great War. The plant had trouble find workers who could use the vulcanizing machine as it was very noisy. After hiring a deaf man to do the work, they recruited many more deaf workers.

He passed away 23 May 1961.

Dummy played for these teams:

Washington Nationals 1888- 1889 Buffalo Bisons 1890 St .Louis Browns 1891 Washington Senators 1892- 1893 Cincinnati Reds 1894-1897 Louisville Colonels 1898 -1897 Chicago White Sox 1901 Cincinnati Reds 1902

His stats include: Batted: Left Threw: Right 1,006 walks 1,796 games played Batting Average .288 Hits 2,048 Runs Batted In (RBI's) 725 Stolen Bases 596 1 of 29 players that have played in four different Major Leagues Players League, National League, American Association, American League

Sources

[2],Wikipedia