"Dead-ball" era Characters wanted....tell us of your favorites ?

[deadballera]

Luther "Dummy" Taylor was profoundly deaf and performed on-field communications with his teammates in sign language. He is credited with helping to expand and make universal the use of sign language throughout the modern baseball infield, including but not limited to the use of pitching signs. He played baseball at the same time as another deaf player, William Ellsworth Hoy, more commonly known as Dummy Hoy

[pgellis]

To expand just a little on Dummy Taylor. He was 1 of 3 deaf children born to hearing parents. He played for McGraw's Giants and his teammates learned sign language so that they could communicate with him. He then moved on to Cleveland and found it frustrating and difficult there because the Cleveland players did not bother to learn sign language.

He went back to the Giants and would often "sign" during the game regarding his thoughts of the job that the umpires were doing. He once got bagged by an umpire that also could read sign language and was fined for doing so.

Here's a very good article on Taylor:

http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?...=14004&bid=987