A batter hits a grounder, hustles down the line and arrives at first base almost simultaneously with the ball. How do the other players and the spectators know if the batter is out or safe?
Everyone looks to the umpire, who raises one fist or sweeps his arms from front to sides. The signals are universal, recognized even by children and casual baseball fans.
The origins of umpires’ gestures are shrouded in mystery that inspired a documentary, Signs of the Times, to be released Monday on DVD. The film focuses on the umpire Bill Klem and outfielder Dummy Hoy, but some historians say the record is too murky and nuanced to single out anyone’s influence.
Klem was a flamboyant and towering figure, one of the first umpires elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. His Cooperstown plaque reads, “Credited with introducing arm signals indicating strikes and fair or foul balls,” but the documentary says the source of most of the credit was Klem himself.
“The truth is a little gray,” said Don Casper, the director and co-producer of the documentary
The film says Klem’s status can be attributed to interviews he gave to magazines like Collier’s in his later years, when few old-timers were around to challenge him. Indeed, the Hall’s website tempers Klem’s claim, stating, “He also was among the originators of arm signals to coincide with his calls.”
The case for Hoy has been made largely by advocates for the deaf lobbying to get him in the Hall of Fame. In the 19th century, the plate umpiresmade calls aloud, so Hoy, who lost his hearing at 3, would turn to read their lips. Opponents would pitch to him before he was ready.
After hitting .219 in the minors in 1885, Hoy, a left-handed hitter, asked his third-base coach to use hand signals to relay the umpire’s calls. His average jumped to .367, propelling him to the majors, where he played from 1888 to 1902. Hoy’s supporters say umpires copied the idea.
“The similarity between these signs and American Sign Language signs are so great that I don’t know if you can ignore it,” Casper said.
But baseball players were using (and stealing) signs on the field well before Hoy’s day. Bill Deane, a well-respected baseball historian and author, first heard of Hoy while a senior research associate for the Hall of Fame’s library and archive.
“Some people in the deaf community asked for documentation,” he said. “Our clipping file was an inch thick, but while there was a lot of recent stuff about Hoy and umpire signals, there was nothing on it during his long lifetime.”
Deane found articles from the 1860s advocating for hand signals because fans could not hear the umpires’ calls. In The New York Sunday Mercury in 1870, Harry Wright called for a raised hand to signal an out on the bases, writing, “You know what noise there is always when a fine play is made on the bases, and it being impossible to hear the umpire, it is always some little time before the player knows whether he is given out or not.”
And Paul Dickson in The Hidden Language of Baseball cited a 1901 article in Sporting Life on a major league experiment in Chicago in which umpires raised their right arms for a strike and their left arms for a ball.
The umpire Cy Rigler began using hand signals in the minors in 1905 so that outfielders knew what he had called. He, as often as Klem, is credited with starting the signs.
Articles from the first decade of the 20th century, when the new umpiring technique took off, never mentioned Hoy. Most references to him date to the 1980s, seemingly traced to an interview with outfielder Sam Crawford in Lawrence S. Ritter’s 1966 oral history The Glory of Their Times, which was updated in 1984.
“Their case is based on the memory of one guy 60 years after the fact,” said Deane, who is writing a book of baseball mythology that will include Hoy.Deane added, “I’m not saying it’s not possible that there’s a vague connection.”
The baseball historian and author Peter Morris said Hoy’s efforts might have influenced umpires but that the use of hand signals was inevitable, needed for the players and the fans as the stadiums became bigger and noisier.
Dickson and Morris said that even without credit for umpiring signals, Hoy might deserve a place in Cooperstown.
“When you look at the obstacles he overcame and the fact that he had more than 2,000 career hits, there’s an argument to be made for him,” Morris said.
Hoy is tied with Johnny Bench for 238th on the career hits list with 2,048. When he retired, he was second in career walks; he scored more than 100 runs nine times and was in the top 10 in steals six times and finished with 596, 18th on the career list.
Whatever role the others played, Morris said, Klem was the first to embellish the signals with a flair that played to the crowds. Casper added that many umpires were skeptical of the new technique, considering it beneath the professional dignity.
“Klem popularized the hand signals,” he said.
The true origins may never be fully known, but Dickson said, “We are in the early phase of digitalization of old records, and new stuff comes to light every day.”
Sports, Pages 32 on 07/25/2010