Word: hoye
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...rookie season, Hoy led the league with 82 stolen bases and finished with 594 thefts by the time he retired after the 1902 season. That many stolen bases is enough in itself to entitle him to a posthumous spot in Cooperstown, as only Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Max Carey and Honus Wagner swiped more during Hoy's lifetime...
...Hoy was a veritable iron man in the batter's box and in centerfield, where he played 1795 games for Washington, Buffalo, St. Louis, Louisville, Chicago and Cincinnati during the course of his career. He led the league in 1899 with 633 at bats and in walks with 1901 and 1891, when he had 119. Altogether he had 2044 hits, which gave him a lifetime batting average...
...Hoy, of course, had to overcome the handicap of being unable to communicate with his fellow fielders. Many of his teammates learned sign language. But the men who played alongside him, for example Tommy Leach during the 1899 season and Hall of Famer Wahoo Sam Crawford during 1902, listened for a sort of throaty squeak he made when calling for a ball...
...deafness had more lasting reper-cussions on the conduct of baseball. The hand signals used by umpires to indicate whether a pitch is a strike or a ball actually originated with Hoy. Since he could neither hear nor speak, umpires began to signal as a matter of course...
...Hoy claimed that his disability never affected his performance on the field. Shortly before he died, he was quoted as communicating, "I found it no handicap. I could feel the tiniest foul tip and when on the bases I had my own secret way of knowing when a batter made a foul tip. The yelling of the opposition was useless as far as I was concerned...