Steve Sandy was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1961. Although he was deaf from birth, it was not discovered until he was three years old. His family was military so he moved often and attended several different deaf and mainstreamed schools around the country, including KDES, the Texas and Pennsylvania Schools for the Deaf, and MSSD. He entered Gallaudet in 1981 but left without completing his degree, and later attended Sinclair Community College and Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Sandy has over 30 years’ service in the federal government, including the Defense Finance and Accounting Service of the Defense Commissary Agency. He became interested in Dummy Hoy and was a founding member of the Hoy Committee in collaboration with the American Athletic Association of the Deaf (AAAD). Sandy has been the leading campaigner for recognition for Hoy’s achievements, as well accumulating an extensive collection of information and memorabilia about Hoy. These papers represent only part of his collection.

William Ellsworth Hoy, later nicknamed “Dummy,” was born in Houcktown, Ohio, in 1862. He lost his hearing to meningitis at age three and attended the Ohio School for the Deaf. Originally a shoemaker and amateur baseball player, he turned pro in 1886 with a team in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and then moved up to the major leagues in 1888 with the Washington Nationals. He went on to play outfielder for several major and minor league teams, including the Nationals, the Buffalo Bisons, the St. Louis Browns, the Washington Senators, the Cincinnati Reds, the Louisville Colonels, the Chicago White Sox, and the Los Angeles Angels. When Hoy retired in 1902, he had a lifetime .287 batting average (.386 OBP), 2,044 hits, 1426 runs (including 40 home runs) and 594 stolen bases. He is one of only three players to throw out three runners at home plate in one game, and is also often credited with inventing the hand signals that umpires use to indicate strikes and balls and whether a player is safe or out.

Hoy married Anna Maria Lowry, a teacher of the deaf, in 1898, and after his retirement from baseball, they operated a dairy farm in Mount Healthy, Ohio. Hoy also worked for the Goodyear Tire Company and a book publishing company. In 1961, at the age of 99, Hoy threw out the first pitch of Game Three of the World Series between the Reds and the Yankees in Cincinnati. He died soon after; at the time, he was the oldest living retired major leaguer.

While there has been a campaign to have Hoy elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, it has been so far unsuccessful. However, he is a member of the Ohio Baseball Hall of Fame, the American Athletic Association Hall of Fame, and the Halls of Fame for the Cincinnati Reds and the Louisville Colonels. Gallaudet University’s baseball field was renamed in his honor in 2002.