Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville Read online

  I recall those three clubowners. I thought they were good people to have behind the club, but that they were unlucky…. It was the poor playing of the team that caused them to lose money. One day the leading members…called a meeting of the team. It was suggested that, as the club was in financial difficulties, each player should be assessed a certain sum and share in the profits, if any. The majority, including myself, after due deliberation, decided to let the ship “sink” and go home, rather than throw good money after the bad.

  In 1891, Hoy therefore moved to St. Louis in the American Association (then a major league), and thence back to the National League, where he played for Washington (1892), Cincinnati (1894), and Louisville (1898). But he bolted again to join the fledgling (but this time successful) American League in 1901. After the 1902 season, he could have continued in the majors, but decided to see another part of the country, and played all 211 games for Los Angeles in the minor Pacific Coast League in his last season of 1903.

  Dummy Hoy may not have stood in the very first rank of players, but he certainly played as a star of the game’s early history. He played 1798 games, nearly all as center fielder, in fourteen seasons, and compiled an excellent lifetime batting average of .288. But his greatest skills lay in three other areas: his speed and superior baserunning abilities (with 597 lifetime steals); his acknowledged intelligence and savvy understanding of the game’s subtleties; and his excellent fielding, particularly his rifle arm. In his most famous single achievement, Hoy once threw three players out at home plate—from the outfield, of course—in a single game in 1888.

  Dummy Hoy accomplished all these feats under an additional disadvantage potentially more serious than his deafness; he was one of the smallest men in the major leagues, even in these early days of lower average height for the general population. Hoy stood between 5' 4" and 5' 5" (sources differ) and weighed about 145 pounds.

  On the more universally human side of our admiration, Hoy’s later life remained a rare model of prosperity and apparent contentment. Hoy saved his money and bought a dairy farm in his native Ohio upon retirement. He married Anna Lowery, a teacher of the deaf (and a deaf woman herself) late in his career, and had three surviving children, two daughters (both of whom taught in schools for the deaf), and a son (who became a distinguished judge in Ohio). Hoy also left seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren when he died in 1962.

  William “Dummy” Hoy, at the age of ninety-eight, throws out the first pitch at a Cincinnati Reds game on April 11, 1961. Credit: AP/Wide World Photos

  After selling his farm in 1924, Hoy worked as a personnel director for deaf employees at the Goodyear Rubber Company in Akron, and then for the Methodist Book Concern in Cincinnati until his retirement. He maintained a home, and continued to walk at least five miles a day, until his wife died during his early 90s. He then lived with his son until his death, just a few months shy of his one hundredth birthday. As a wonderful last baseball hurrah, Dummy Hoy, at age ninety-eight, threw out the first ball both on opening day and (having turned ninety-nine in May) at one of the World Series games, for the 1961 Cincinnati Reds, the principal team of his own career (1894–1897, and again in his last major league season of 1902). Dummy Hoy had a truly wonderful life.

  In addition to what one might call his more generic excellence, Dummy Hoy commands our attention (and commends our study) for at least three particular reasons that illuminate the history of American sports and our social history in general.

  His deafness. One cannot (and should not) fail to recognize the defining feature that gave Dummy Hoy his baseball name. First, as all aficionados of the game will instantly recognize, Dummy Hoy played center field—and center fielders must serve as generals of the outfield by calling which balls they will catch, and which should be handled by the right or left fielder. How could a mute player express such leadership? That he played center serves as testimony to the acceptance and respect that Hoy commanded among his fellow players. Wahoo Sam Crawford (from Wahoo, Nebraska), one of the game’s early stars, played with Hoy in the outfield, and provided personal testimony in his interview for Lawrence S. Ritter’s wonderful 1966 book, The Glory of Their Times, an oral history told by the few survivors of baseball’s early years:

  We played alongside each other in the outfield with the Cincinnati club in 1902. He had started in the Big Leagues way back in the 1880’s, you know, so he was on his way out then. But even that late in his career he was a fine outfielder, a great one. I’d be in right field and he’d be in center, and I’d have to listen real careful to know whether or not he’d take a fly ball. He couldn’t hear, you know, so there wasn’t any sense in me yelling for it. He couldn’t talk either, of course, but he’d make a kind of throaty noise, kind of a little squawk, and when a fly ball came out and I heard this little noise I knew he was going to take it. We never had any trouble about who was to take the ball.

  But you did have to be tough to survive in these rough-and-tumble days. Tommy Leach, another early player, told this anecdote to Ritter about his first day with Louisville in 1898:

  My own bat hadn’t arrived yet, so I just went over and picked one out I liked and went up to hit. After I was through, I hardly had time to lay the bat down before somebody grabbed me and I heard this strange voice say something like, “What are you doing with my bat?” Scared the dickens out of me. I looked up, and it was a deaf mute. We had a deaf mute playing center field, Dummy Hoy…. I roomed with Dummy in 1899, and we got to be good friends. He was real fine ballplayer.

  Leach later became friendly with Hoy’s wife as well, and he recalled their styles of communication (Hoy, evidently, was not entirely mute, though he usually communicated by sign, or by writing—and he read lips superbly):

  They could read lips so well they never had any trouble understanding anything I said. They could answer you back, too, in a little squeaky voice that usually you could understand once you got used to it. We hardly ever had to use our fingers to talk, although most of the fellows did learn the sign language, so that when we got confused or something we could straighten it out with our hands.

  Hoy also won the appreciation of fans as well as players. Sportswriter Vincent X. Flaherty heard about Hoy’s play as a child, and wrote an appreciation for Hoy’s ninetieth birthday:

  But perhaps none of these gilded facets of his all-around ability impressed me nearly as much as the fact that he was a deaf-mute. In a kid’s mind, that made him unique. It set him apart from all others, and made him something special.

  Several witnesses remembered Hoy’s popularity among fans. When Hoy made a good hit or fielding play, the fans would stand up and wave their arms, hats, and handkerchiefs in easily visible appreciation. They called him “The Amazing Dummy.”

  But it would be dishonest and unfair to gild a reality with the claim that deafness didn’t matter, or even proved more of an advantage for the appreciation thus engendered than a detriment for jeers received or possibilities foreclosed. One has only to read standard press accounts of the time to get a flavor of old-style political incorrectness. Consider the following 1892 report on a salary dispute under the headline, “‘I Won’t Sign,’ Says Hoy.”: “Wagner [the club owner] offered to split the difference and raised his figure to $3250, but the dummy wouldn’t sign and the matter was dropped.”

  The practices of journalism usually worked to Hoy’s great disadvantage by the opposite route of silence. Press coverage didn’t matter as much then as now, but players’ popularity and reputations still correlated strongly with journalistic attention. Few reporters ever bothered to interview Hoy at all, even though he was probably the smartest player in baseball at the time. They were discomfited, didn’t know how, or just didn’t want to bother with the extra time needed to read and write answers. Disability then carried no cachet, and not a single reporter ever followed Hoy or interviewed him extensively. In the revealing letter quoted earlier, and written when he was ninety-three, Hoy recalled the origin of official c
onfusion about his age—and with a most poignant final line:

  I was 28 with that club [Buffalo in 1890] and 93 on my last birthday—May 23, 1955. Why do not the records tally with those figures? I will tell you and go bail on the correctness of my figures—they were copied from the family Bible: One rainy day in the Spring of 1886, the Oshkosh (Wis.) players were assembled in the club house getting ready for the opening day. A newspaper man, representing the local press, entered to take down the age, height, and weight of each player. When it came to my turn to be interviewed he omitted me because I was a deaf mute. Also because he had not the time to bother with the necessary use of pad and pencil. When I read the write-up the next day I saw where he had me down as 20 years old. He had made what he considered a good guess. Now, during my school days I had been taught to refrain from correcting my elders. Then, too, he had whiskers. After thinking the matter over I decided to let his figures stand. Later, the Associated Press copied them. In this way, I became known as the twenty-year-old Oshkosh deaf-mute player. Thus, I got along fine by telling all inquirers that I had my birthday last May 23 and that I was past the age in question. My looks satisfied them, too, as I was always looking younger than my real age. What would you have done if you had been in my place?

  Journalist Robert F. Panera cites the following anecdote in an article for the Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle:

  The first few months were difficult for Hoy, being unable to hear or speak. Often he was the butt of ridicule by his fellow players. But Hoy persisted and let his play speak for itself…. He soon showed that he was not only literate but also had a keen sense of humor. Using pad and pencil to communicate with a reporter during an interview, he wrote, “What is your name?” The reporter, taken aback, voiced to those standing nearby, “Oh, I didn’t know he could write!” Proving he could lipread too, Hoy snatched back the pad and wrote, “Yes, but I can’t read.”

  Finally, we must acknowledge the contingent good fortune that gave Hoy a chance to develop his playing skills at all. Luckily, Hoy attended the Ohio School for the Deaf; and, luckily, his school became the first of its kind to institute baseball, sometime around 1870. In 1879, several players of the Ohio School organized the first semiprofessional deaf club, the Ohio Independent Baseball Team. They barnstormed through several eastern states, playing town clubs, and even some National League teams. Major league baseball’s other deaf star, pitcher Dummy Taylor, also graduated from the Ohio School for the Deaf.

  His intelligence, independence, and education. Hoy played at a time when most players were semiliterate and lacked much formal education. Very few had ever attended college. (The great pitcher Christy Mathewson spent a few terms at Bucknell, but never graduated. Still, and to this day, neither standard baseball prose nor Bucknell’s promotional office will ever let you forget this tidbit.) Hoy never progressed beyond high school either, but his unusual literacy shines forth in the few letters, most written during his nineties, that the Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown supplied to me from their files. (One has to be familiar with the awkward and utterly ungrammatical prose of most early players to appreciate what a rare jewel these letters—and Hoy’s equally articulate spontaneous testimonies—represent.)

  But we needn’t rely only on these documents. Contemporary accolades from Hoy’s teammates and fans tell the same story. Thomas Lonegran, a St. Louis baseball historian, watched Hoy play throughout the 1891 season and remarked:

  Hoy is one of the brainiest ballplayers I ever saw…. Hoy was as swift as a panther in the field…. I have seen balls hit for singles that would have been doubles or triples with other players fielding them. With men on bases, Hoy never threw to the wrong spot. No player ever returned a ball faster from the outfield…. Hoy was a “Cobb” on the bases. I never saw him picked off base…. Hoy, a deaf mute, didn’t bother about coaches. He did his baserunning on his own. There’ll never be another like him.

  In an interview for his ninetieth birthday, Hoy recalled how he had used his own intelligence to make up for clues usually supplied by others:

  As to the yelling of my own coaches, that meant nothing to me. They meant well but I could not take my eyes off the ball in play to watch them. So I had to go solo. I was always mentally figuring in advance all possible plays on the bases and in the field.

  I also wonder if Hoy’s intelligence and pride (as well as his understanding of loneliness and the unfairness of labeling) can help to explain his restlessness in frequent moves between clubs, particularly his willingness, twice in his career, to jump from the established National League to “outlaw” (the Players’ League, as defined by owners!) or “upstart” (the American League at its inception in 1901) organizations. We do know that Hoy was one of the few early players willing to contest his tendered salary in public, and to withhold signing in hopes for negotiation of a higher wage. In his age of limited options, the reserve clause forced a player to sign with his own club or not to play at all.

  The success and prosperity of Hoy’s later life also reflects his unusual intelligence and integrity. I was particularly touched by a small story told by Wahoo Sam Crawford about their post-baseball friendship:

  Another interesting thing about Dummy Hoy was the unique doorbell arrangement he had in his house. He had a wife who was a deaf mute too, and they lived in Cincinnati. Instead of a bell on the door, they had a little knob. When you pulled this knob it released a lead ball which rolled down a wooden chute and then fell off onto the floor with a thud. When it hit the floor they felt vibrations through their feet, and they knew somebody was at the door. I thought that was quite odd and interesting, don’t you?

  Above all, and in conclusion, I love the wit and clarity of Hoy’s letters over so many years. To cite just two examples from mid- and late life, Hoy wrote to the owner of the Cincinnati Reds in 1925, responding to an invitation sent to former players to join a celebration for the club’s fiftieth anniversary: “Your invitation…is accepted with pleasure. Like all young players on the eve of a spring training trip, I am ‘raring to go.’” After the event, Hoy wrote (and I quote his witty, if formal, note in full):

  I wish to express to you and the Red directors my thanks and appreciation for the handsome manner in which you entertained us “oldtimers” yesterday.

  The chance which the occasion afforded in the renewing of old acquaintances and the forming of new ones did us all much good, I assure you.

  It was a good game we saw. It resulted in a win because we brought you good luck—probably.

  We sure were surprised at the fine dining room you have up in the grand stand. Most of us did not know it existed. And the eats and drinks, and the smokes! As a host you have the job down fine and we take our hats off to you.

  If the Reds would only play as well on the diamond as you entertain in the dining room, the pennant would be Cincinnati’s easily.

  On the day of his ninety-eighth birthday, May 23, 1960, Dummy Hoy wrote to his journalist friend J. M. Overfield:

  Only a few days ago I decided to carry a walking stick, a stick I have been treasuring for 74 years, which I never used except the year it was presented to me by a bunch of Oshkosh baseball fans. Just why a walking stick was selected for a present is understandable because in the year 1886 the craze in the U.S. was the carrying by young people of slender bamboo sticks, priced at ten cents and up. They were put in cylinder containers, placed on the sidewalk in front of shops for the passerby to stop, select one, go inside and pay for his choice. Mine was and is a gold square-handled ebony cane, suitably engraved. The presentation ceremony was published in the Oshkosh newspapers of the period. I imagine the sporting editor of whatever paper it was would be surprised to learn that the centerfielder of the 1886 Oshkosh baseball club began his 99th year by carrying that same treasured stick for real aid in his walking.

  His legends and their history. Standing in the way of history, but reflecting something precious about human foibles, legends inevitably arise about old-timers f
rom supposedly golden ages, particularly players remembered for their excellences or eccentricities. Two particular legends both dog and surround Dummy Hoy—and I end this essay with a short recitation in order to make an explicit point.

  First, he did throw three runners out at the plate from the outfield in a single game in 1888—and only a handful of players have ever accomplished this feat. We should, of course, mention and even highlight this peculiarity of genuinely superior fielding skills combined with the luck of odd circumstances in a single game. (Outfielders, no matter how good, rarely get three opportunities even to try for such long-distance assists in a single game). But we make a terrible mistake—though the stuff of legends directs our focus to such oddly heroic events—when we write endlessly about single grand moments (partly fueled by luck) and neglect the daily grind of consummate play over many years.

  Second, nearly all popular sources hold that Hoy initiated a ubiquitous, if minor, tradition of baseball practiced ever since—the hand signals used by umpires to call balls and strikes. I suppose that the pathways of legend must conjure up stories to render the oddly contingent both purposeful and anecdotally touching—in short to vest the origin of a general practice in a sensible and particular source. We should therefore always be wary of tales that sound “so right.” Perhaps the story is true, but best evidence indicates that the first umpire to use such signals did not enter baseball until 1905, two years after Hoy’s retirement (although Hoy’s teammates probably did signal him from the dugout, and perhaps with the same signs eventually adopted by umpires).