Posted By:
Linda LevitanI'm working on the first full-scale biography of William Ellsworth "Dummy" Hoy, and am collecting images for the book. (I actually own very few.) If you have access to high-quality scanners, and can accommodate high-dpi scanning, I can receive E-mailed or disked images. In particular, I'd like to find three Old Judge N172 images: Hoy catching a fly ball, Hoy squatting to field a ground ball, and the other pose I've never seen. I already have reproductions of the familiar shot of Hoy tanding with his bat touching a base, and the shot of Hoy batting. I have reproductions of the squatting and fly-ball images...but both have been retouched, since the originals were used as file headshots.
One image I'd love to obtain is one showing Hoy with "Dummy" Taylor at a 1942 Labor Day Weekend Deaf-softball tourney in Akron. (Both are wearing suits, but standing side by side.) The only version I have is a rephotographing from Ralph LinWeber's "American Deaf Softball Guide," and the quality of the image is, to put it mildly, dreadful. (It was blurred and fuzzy as published in the softball guide, and the rephotographing doesn't enhance its clarity.)
I have some team shots (from the archives of "Sporting News" and National Baseball Library, etc.), but welcome other authentic vintage images. Any publishable images you share, virtually and otherwise, will be properly credited.
If you're interested in participating, or in joining the "Dummy" Hoy Committee, please visit the "'Dummy' Hoy Homeplate" at www.dummyhoy.com, and get in touch with us.