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King George County man championing Dummy Hoy--baseball's first deaf player--for induction into the Hall of Fame Date published: 7/30/2006
By MICHAEL ZITZ TODAY, he wouldn't be "Dummy." Today, if they showed baseball's first deaf player making a great catch in center field on the ESPN "SportsCenter" highlights, they'd probably call him Bill. Today, as 1980s reliever Bruce Sutter is inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., King George County resident Rex L. Bishop will be remembering William Ellsworth "Dummy" Hoy. Bill Hoy is not memorable. Dummy Hoy is unforgettable. Bishop, a business law professor at the College of Southern Maryland who grew up in Hoy's hometown of Houcktown, Ohio, is one of the leaders of an effort to get baseball's first deaf player into the game's Hall of Fame. The times were far from politically correct over a century ago when Hoy played for the Washington Senators. But the lack of sensitivity of his day may have added to his cachet today. The first time Hoy hit against a deaf pitcher, the newspaper headline was "Dummy faces Dummy." Worse, other players tried to take advantage of his disability by quick-pitching him when he looked away to see if a previous offering had been called a ball or a strike. Not being able to hear the umpire's call, he'd glance at his third-base coach, who would give him a hand sign telling him if it was a ball or a strike. And some pitchers would then try to sneak a strike past him as he looked away. Bishop said that sort of thing never fazed baseball's first handicapped player. As he and other Hoy supporters watch today's Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, their resolve to continue pushing for a player who saw his heyday 100 years ago and died in 1961 remains unwavering. David Risotto, an independent Los Angeles filmmaker who has just completed a documentary on Hoy, compares his refusal to bow to personal difficulties and long odds to story of the fictional boxer "Rocky." In addition to being deaf, Hoy, at 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 5 inches tall and approximately 145 pounds, was one of baseball's smallest players ever.
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