While Ed Dundon was the first deaf player to play baseball professionally, William Hoy was perhaps the most successful of all that succeeded Dundon.
Hoy went deaf after an attack of meningitis at the age of three. Like Dundon, he went on to attend the Ohio State School for the Deaf, and he went on to have a 14-year career, amassing over 2,000 hits and nearly 1,500 runs scored.
Sources will note him as “Dummy” Hoy, since that was the term that was used for the deaf at the time, but it’s archaic and I refuse to use it. Interestingly enough, there were quite a few deaf players early on in baseball history, but far fewer once the live-ball era began. One, however, stands out.
