UDSKRIFT 🔗
Hey, Coop here. Welcome to 90 Second ReCAP, where I share a quick sports history lesson based on today’s cap.
It’s December 15th, and I’m wearing a Chicago White Sox New Era 59Fifty, with a 1901-1995 side patch, purchased in-store at Lids.
Even if you’re a huge baseball fan, it’s unlikely that you’ve heard of William Hoy. But as a kid, I certainly knew of a deaf mute surnamed Hoy, who prompted umpires to begin using hand signals.
So, let’s dispel that myth.
Well-publicized is the idea that Hoy’s lack of hearing prompted umpires to begin using hand signals. Given that Bill Klem, the arbiter who invented ball and strike hand signals, didn’t start his big league career until three seasons after Billy finished his, it’s safe to say that’s busted.
We’re here because on THIS DATE in 1961, William Ellsworth Hoy died at the age of 99, the oldest living ex-major leaguer at the time.
First crossing paths as opponents in the Players League’s sole season in 1890, Hoy would begin his relationship with Charlie Comiskey the following year, when they were teammates on the St. Louis Browns. The Old Roman would bring William to Cincy in 1894, then again to Chicago in 1900.
We remember Hoy because of the hand signals myth, but he SHOULD be remembered for being one heckuva ballplayer, leading Comiskey’s Chicago club to the AL pennant in 1900 AND 1901, the Junior Circuit’s first year as a major league.
The first deaf big leaguer was Edward Dundon, the 1878 valedictorian of the Ohio School for the Deaf. The following year, William Hoy took that title, proving that both men were no dummies.