  Dummy Brand   Bill Hoy (1862‒1961) is the best-known deaf-mute to play professional baseball. Like other deaf-mute players of his era he was tagged with the name “Dummy.” Hoy’s road to the big leagues was handicapped further by his stature: although listed as 5’ 6” tall he was probably shorter, looking more like a Hobbit in a baseball uniform than a professional athlete. Hoy debuted as a 26-year-old rookie outfielder with the last place Washington Nationals in 1888, and played for five other teams during his fourteen-year career. He retired in 1902 after a fine career in which he amassed more than 2,000 hits, 594 stolen bases and a lifetime .287 batting average. Hoy is credited with inspiring umpires to use hand signals when indicating balls and strikes, a practice alluded to in the chart of ASL hand gestures. The only real dummy depicted here is Charlie McCarthy, the popular NBC Radio sidekick created by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. (Ventriloquism over the  radio ? What kind of dummy would buy that?) 