Baseball hand-signs already in 1870s

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:24 PM -0600 9/23/09, Gerald Cohen wrote:

>>From: "Peter Morris" <moxbib at voyager.net>
>>Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 22:02:52 -0500
>>Subject: RE: [19cBB] origin of baseball signs
>>
>>It's true that McGraw's Giants tried communicating via sign language for a
>>brief time.  But signs were being used in baseball as early as the mid-1870s
>>and were very common by the 1880s.  So the idea that this was the earliest
>>use of signs is absurd.  Nor was Taylor the only deaf-mute to play in the
>>majors in the twentieth century -- Deegan, Hoy, ...

Ah, Dummy Hoy.  That's the one that was on the tip of my typing
finger.  The others I hadn't heard of; wonder how many of them were
"Dummy X".  Times have certainly changed.

larry