Monica Horner
Staff Reporter
WILLIAM “DUMMY” HOY
(1862-1961)
During Hoy’s baseball career, he played outfield for the major league team, the Cincinnati Reds. Hoy’s career facilitated the creation of the intricate system of baseball hand signals, which are still used in today’s baseball games throughout the world. In 1887, Hoy wrote out a request to the third-base coac asking him to raise his left arm to indicate a ball and his right arm for a strike. The third base coach would sign each of the umpire’s calls to Hoy. Hoy adapted the out and safe signals from American Sign Language. Other players and umpires found these signals useful, so they became standard practice in America’s Greatest Game. In 1951, Hoy was unanimously voted the first player into the American Athletic Association of the Deaf Hall of Fame.
