The 1906 World Series and the Birth of Umpire’s Gestures: How Sign Language Saved Baseball

The 1906 World Series was a series of firsts. It was the first modern Subway series, pitting the Chicago White Sox against the Chicago Cubs. It was the first appearance in the World Series for both franchises. And it was the first World Series in which the umpires called the games with gestures.

The Chicago Tribune reported “that the din of rooting was so great it was impossible to hear an umpire’s decision.” Finally, “Silk O’Loughlin supplemented his clarion voice with his characteristic gestures, and his decisions were apparent to all. . . Before the third game, both umpires were instructed to raise their right arms for strikes and their left arms for balls.”

Sports reporters in 1906 recognized O’Loughlin’s system as “Dummy Hoy’s mute signal code.” William ‘Dummy’ Hoy was the first deaf star in baseball, playing from 1888-1902. His third base coach regularly signed the umpire’s calls to him in just that way.

The history of the 1906 World Series confirms that this deaf code was adopted by hearing umpires for use in baseball. This matters because official baseball, in the form of historians, archivists, and museums, has given the credit for the origination of such signs not to Dummy Hoy but to hearing umpires. This paper will explore how and why the deaf contribution to the national pastime was written out of baseball history. It will question how historical myth became fact in this case, and explore how the accurate but subaltern historical memory of the deaf community was rejected by hearing gatekeepers for so long. It will highlight the deaf community’s unwavering loyalty to Hoy and their efforts to correct the historical record on his behalf.