 wanted to discuss some of the points that were brought up in the movie. I have my own opinions about who came up with the signs of baseball. So I wanted to explain a bit about the name dummy. That was not seen as an insult at the time. It was just a word that people used to mean someone who can't talk. Before people who had glasses for instance might be called spectacles or specs. And where I grew up in Iowa a lot of people would say oh dumb sweet and or or sweet and that wasn't an insult. And so it's the same with the word dummy. It was not an insult. It was it was a compliment. They were nicknames. So he died when he was 99 years old. Not many baseball players lived out till the age of 100 or more. So that was a big accomplishment in itself. Now I'd like to see a vote. Who do you think came up with the signs of baseball? Do you think it's dummy hoy? Do you think it was Bill Clem the Empire or somebody else? Who do you think came up with the signs of baseball? Who think it's dummy? Raise your hand. Raise your hands. Okay a good number of you. Who votes for Bill Clem? Show your hands. Okay one. Who thinks it was others? Great. I have five supporters. Glad to see you in the audience. So you can see here the year 1905 is highlighted in red. And I did that to show a chronology of years and you'll see that to come. A lot of players would talk about Bill Clem as as umpire. And you can see here 251 ejections. He was famous for his ejections. And he was proud of them too. It was really a difficult job, especially for someone who was shorter in stature like he was. And a lot of the other empires were tall and they had they had that advantage over players who were shorter than them. He liked the old arbitrator but he hated he liked to be called that but he hated the nickname that was given to him Catfish. One time he walked to plate brushed it off and saw there a newspaper clipping and he got so angry he ejected the catcher from the from the game and he said he was innocent hadn't done anything. But the newspaper clipping was about Bill Clem making a bad call and that was the the image of him in the newspaper clipping and that's why he he he outed him but he didn't respond to that. He claims that he invented hags hand signals and he was boisterous about it. People who talk a lot do get a lot more attention. That is true. Interesting the year 1907 is when they started requiring hand signals and baseball and a lot of umpires didn't like that. They felt like making the hand signals made them look silly and that belief of hand signals making someone look silly persistent society to today. Bill Clem was made the most ejections of any umpire. Number two was Cy Riggler. They're number one and number two for most ejections given in baseball. They're both recognized for that. So you see here that he started umpiring in 1906 and he unlike Bill Clem was very tall and intimidated the players. They didn't want to argue with him. He was over six feet tall which in that time was very rare. Before entering the major leagues he umpired in the minor leagues and he used signals there. When he got to the major leagues he was surprised to find that signs were already being used there. So you see here that I've highlighted the year 1883 which is before Riggler and Clem. He went to the Ohio State School for the Deaf in the 1870s. There was a baseball team there and Demi Hoy was one of the players and they were using hand signals way back then. Signals to signify safe and out and perhaps the signals rippled out from there. Perhaps they were carried on to baseball from that beginning. In 1886 there was an exhibition game and there were hand signals being used there. Ed Denden was a player there and the regular umpire wasn't able to work. So they chose him a deaf person to umpire. Perhaps they thought it would be useful for him to use hand signals and he probably got his hand signals from the Ohio School for the Deaf. He did. So you see here that a head shake was one of the signals that meant you did not make a play and a wave of the hand meant you were out or like this. This signified out. So again we see here in 1870 he umpired a major league game. And I just want to explain that a little bit. At that time there was usually one umpire. Today you'll see four on the field and one in the dugout which is five all together. But when he was umpiring there was one and if you couldn't, if you didn't have that one show up to work what would you do? Cancel the game? Apparently they didn't. They would choose the tallest player of either team and get them to be an umpire. It was tough to argue with the tallest person there. So you see the last sentence here probably played against the San Francisco SEALs in the 1903. He stopped playing major leagues in 1902 and then in 1903 he played for in Los Angeles California 211 games in one season. Today the limit is 162. That's the maximum you can do today. And he did 211 games. Why did he play more games in California? Because it's warmer. The weather here allowed for the playing season to be longer. It was a much longer season possible for baseball. So because he played 211 games that means he must have played against the San Francisco SEALs in 1903. So my choice, my vote, is the Ohio School for the Deaf. That's who I think came up with the signs for baseball. Ed Dundin used this system and perhaps the signs spread from there. Can you even imagine a high school team touring pro baseball teams and beating them? Can you even imagine that? That's what happened way back then. And remember baseball was a new pastime at that in those years. A lot of the schools for the deaf started having baseball teams because they'd watch the children playing all day on the weekends and the children at the school for the deaf would be there. It was a residential school. They would be there for nine months of the year. So that's why baseball started to become popular there. You see all these names of major or minor league players. The first five names were teammates and played pro teams together. It's quite amazing. And they used hand signals that whole time. So perhaps they were exposing all these pro teams to hand signals even then. I want to bring your attention to the last bullet point. 1899, he was playing outfield, threw a ball to home plate and got three runners out in a single game, which is still a major lead record today. And perhaps some of you know of William Mays. He's done one compared to his three. Just one. And he's in the Hall of Fame. Dummy Hoy has more stolen bases than he does and he's still in the Hall of Fame. My daughter has a ball signed by William Mays. In 1902, that was the only time in the history of pro baseball player, pro baseball that two deaf players faced each other. Dummy Taylor pitched for the New York Giants. I never heard of the San Francisco Giants talk about him. That would be great. But Dummy Taylor was a big guy, a tall guy and a little bit of a bully. He was a dorm counselor in my old residential school for the deaf before I ever even was a student there. I heard about him. It was an excellent pitcher. In 1979, Ohio State, 1879, they toured the East and the Pacific. I think there was about 15,000 miles in one summer that they traveled. Incredible. They beat six out of the eight pro games. At N Dundin, the movie mentions him briefly. They don't give a lot of background information on him. But from my own research, I saw that he was one of the first to use hand signals. And perhaps he was the one that started the signs for baseball. So the very last bullet point here. Remember that baseball, you know, when before they used hand signals, it was very difficult to hear what the call was that the empire was making. It was like there was a glass wall. Why isn't Dummy Hoy in the Hall of Fame? Here are some possible reasons. One is he stopped playing in 1902. The Hall of Fame started in 1936. Writers and reporters and people who were choosing candidates perhaps didn't remember him. The Hall of Fame has a committee of veterans who decide which candidates to choose that of the old players. But none of them knew Dummy Hoy personally. So there was nobody to advocate for him. Another reason is that Dummy Hoy was very humble. Many reporters and people, writers asked him a lot of questions about baseball and he would write back to them. And baseball historians loved his writing, loved corresponding with him. He had so much information about baseball. But he never spoke about himself when he was corresponding with them. And he never said that he invented science for baseball, so he didn't advocate for himself either. He was extremely humble. I'm sure you've all heard of Babe Ruth. Most people have heard about him because he was so boisterous. He hung around reporters. He went to bars and parties, socialized with everyone in his field. People loved him. He was a good player too. What do you think? Should Dummy Hoy be in the Baseball Hall of Fame? Some are saying yes. I think he should. I think his statistics alone are incredible. They didn't have a Hall of Fame when he was playing. And he lived much longer than so many of his friends. Nobody was left to advocate for him. Sam Crawford is an old man and he played with him, played against him. Says that Hoy was the originator of the signs. Some people think that the hand signals just happened organically on their own. Fans demanded it. Reporters demanded it. Fans couldn't understand what the umpires were saying because they couldn't hear them. Today, everything is broadcast, but they didn't have that technology back then. I'm sure you've all heard of Pete Rose. Do you feel that he should be in the Hall of Fame? I think he should, but he's kind of a bad boy. He's a gambler. So he's out. He gambled, but his team didn't. He was not thrown out of a game. He was a serious player. But the major leagues just focused on, well, they remembered what happened the Chicago Black Sox scandal with the World Series, how they lost all those games on purpose so that they were able to get more money. So ever since that gambling has been really frowned upon, perhaps you remember Eddie DeBartol, the 49er? Yes. He was involved in casinos and the managers were worried about the criminal activity and that they might get involved. Criminals might get involved, so he was thrown out. Do you have any questions for me? I'm not an expert in baseball. Everything I know, I've researched and just read other people's words. Oh, thank you so much for the applause. Whose hand was up first? I saw a couple hands up first. Is it you? Hi, is this working? Okay, can you talk about, okay, the film shows a picture of him with Connie Mack, the founder of the athletics franchise. Can you talk about his friendship with Connie Mack? I think Clark Griffith is also in the same picture. Yes, he played baseball with them. He played for actually six different teams. And those two were players on one team with him, Connie and Griffin. I also, I forgot the six different teams he played with, but he played in various teams. And so imagine his use of sign language and how those signals spread across the league that way. Prior to that, there were maybe some hand signals used. But after that, they were more widespread, especially the use in California with the hand gestures and used predominantly in these games here. And of course, it just spread from there. And during those 100 211 games, follow up question. So Connie Mack played with the Pittsburgh Pirates, I think in the 1890s, was that where they cross paths? Who? Well, I'd have to do some research first. I think you can look on the internet and major league baseball or MLB.com and they have quite a extensive list. Thanks. And possibly you can see some of the teams that were involved on that list. The teammates. At that time, the teams were typically small. They maybe had a handful of players 12 or so. But now we have several more players on the teams. So my question is about the signs that the catcher gives to the pitcher and the signs that the third base coach relays from the manager to the hitter. Do you have any thoughts about how those signs came to be? Those are different sets of signals. The catcher signals that they tell that they're communicating with to the pitcher happened much later. They evolved much later in the game. And those are agreements made between teammates. And and we prior to that, there were no curveballs. And we look at baseball historically. There wasn't enough time in the manner that they were pitching at that point to throw a curveball. They had to move back to a further point on the pitching mound to be able to throw a pitch like that. There had to be enough time to make a curve before it hit home plate. And so different types of pitching styles developed over the years. Fast balls, slow balls, curve balls and so forth. There was no need to do hand signals before that because those those types of pitches didn't exist. When dummy was playing, he would would be looking at the third base communicator whoever's using the sign language from there. And that just prior to prior at his point in the game, they weren't doing that type of exchange between the catcher and the pitcher. Other. In 1902, when dummy Hoy faced dummy Taylor, do you think that they signed to each other? And what would that look like? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, sign language is is different from back then. I was signing this earlier to the two interpreters and they were like, What does that mean? What does that mean? But that's an older sign that we use for height that we indicate height. And it's more indicative of an older sign about measurement. So in what I was growing up, this is the sign we use for height. It's it just changes language of all those evolves. And at that time, sign language was much slower. Now sign language is much faster and the pace is different. And people sign with one hand, they just go all over the place at various speeds and it's, you know, mind blowing. Back then it was a very different language. It looked different. So it was much slower. But I imagine at that time, you know, it's of course, it's evolved since then. And today we have the sign for technology. It's signed like this. And in their days, that word didn't even exist in the language. You know, I was a farm boy, I grew up on a farm. When I grew up, we were talking, we were using hand gestures indicate what we were doing. And I'm showing this to my interpreter now. And, and she doesn't know it. But it was a sign we use then for plow. And it was a sign that indicated, you know, the things that were being used at the time and we were on farms. And that was the kind of language that was being used. And it evolved from there. Currently, we signed this for man. At their time, we they signed boy and tall or boy and short, a different girl tall girl short indicated an adult woman or a young girl. And of course, those time those signs have changed over time to be to look different. Are there any other deaf players aside from Hoy and Taylor? I'd say there's about 15 altogether in pro baseball 15. The last one I forget his name. Oh, what's what's he on with? Curtis pride, right, right, right. Curtis pride. He's the he's the last last player. And he started out at Gallaudet University. When it was a college and and and was a communication major. And then what rather once his communication improved, you can imagine prior to that he didn't have exposure in high school, and he didn't have the same opportunities. I'm sorry, you had another question you said? Yes, it mentioned in the in the film that he was called dumbing and used that he approved of the name and was proud of it. Would you say Oh, yeah, if you were called that name? Would you be proud of it if someone had called you that name? Well, for me. Well, you know, I don't know about the young kids, but I'd say in my day, you know, we would just say deaf, we would say we sign we sign deaf. Oh, rather the kids, the kids use deaf now. But hearing impaired isn't something that it indicates some sort of brokenness. And so we would sign deaf. Not focusing on our the medical hearing loss or the biological hearing loss but about our culture. And so it's a word that has more of a pride, a sense of pride around it than a sense of what we cannot do, which is here. If someone called me dummy, I would call that an honor. So I don't know about the young kids, though, but that's that's that's a different crowd. Last question. Any last questions? Growing up in Iowa. What were your first experiences with baseball? And how did you get to love baseball and really begin to enjoy it? What were your first experiencing experiencing made baseball? Yeah, well, when I grew up, I actually didn't play baseball. I tried out for the sandlot team, but I was struck out immediately. And so embarrassed, I didn't show my face for a while. But on the farm, you know, I pitched quite a bit and I would pitch that ball. And I would back up a few feet and try again. And it's to it to the point where I was pitching at 60 feet. And then I guess when I was 10, I was the first time I had been exposed to baseball in that sense. In the 1950s, the Yankees, everybody was a Yankees fan. Because they were a popular team. And I thought that I was I was interested in the Yogi Berra. I was interested in Yogi Berra, the catcher. And my friend Whitford, Whitney Ford, white Ford. We would talk about catchers and and he stopped playing because baseball had stopped for about two full summers. He went back to home during the summertime to work on the farm. I was a lucky kid because I could play catcher. And the high school principal at the time was a hearing guy. And he would tell us to where to play. And he told me I'd play catcher. So he would throw a curveball. And that thing would go around and then end up right back in my mitt every time. And it would look like it was going clear around, but it would come back. And so I started to see the idea of skill in pitchers, and that you could make a ball go in different directions and then end up over over the base over home plate. And he was famous for giving up five home runs in a game. Mike, the principal that I mentioned, he was famous for giving up five home runs in a game. He was kind of proud of that. But I appreciate him for showing me how to how to pitch a curveball. I learned a lot about pitching from him. And it was a gift. You can't develop it if you don't have it. But he blew it. I thought, why do I have to practice? Why? He thought he thought he thought why do I have to practice? That's not necessary. But he kind of blew it with that game. Thank you so much for coming to speak with us tonight, Dave.