Film Review: Signs of the Time

The introduction of umpire hand signals has long been a matter of lively debate among baseball historians. A new film, Signs of the Time , examines two of the more widespread accounts.

Signs , an hour-long documentary produced in Rochester, NY, tells the stories of deaf-mute ballplayer Dummy Hoy and Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem, each of whom has been credited with the innovation of umpire hand signals for balls and strikes, safe and out. The film features interviews with Bob Feller, Brooks Robinson, Earl Weaver, former umpire Jim Evans and historian Bill Deane, among others, all of whom weigh in on the topic. More than just a historical documentary, Signs also attempts to show the continuity of umpiring from the late 19 ^th century until the present—although, unfortunately, there is no discussion of its evolution. The film tells the story of a current deaf ballplayer who taught his high school teammates rudimentary sign language, and it also gives many entertaining anecdotes from old ballplayers such as Bobby Bragan and Bill Werber.

As a film, Signs is often choppy. There is a good deal of wandering exploration but few conclusions. We hear that Bill Klem was an animated arbiter, but it is not explained why that necessarily proves that he invented hand signals, nor is his own proclamation to the effect ever really prodded. A tangental story about Earl Weaver’s Hall of Fame candidacy is interesting, but ultimately not relevant to the topic of the movie. The re-enactments of important games from Hoy and Klem’s careers are fun, though, helping to bring the story to life. In sum, Signs occasionally falters, but is nonetheless a very entertaining film that should be of interest to all baseball fans.

For serious historians, of course, an hour-long documentary cannot begin to provide full enough treatment of the main question: who ‘invented’ the signals? Signs never really comes down definitively on the issue, instead doing a good deal of cinematic hand-waving in the general direction of both Hoy and Klem. The basic facts of the Dummy Hoy hypothesis are that Hoy, who played from 1888 to 1902, convinced the umpires early in his career (about 1886) to signal their calls visibly for his benefit. The film mentions as a possible genesis a game between Hoy’s Oshkosh team and St. Paul in which Hoy admitted to an umpire that he did not catch a ball, using the contemporary ASL sign for “no”—a sweeping arm motion with the palms downward, similar to the modern safe sign. It’s unlikely, however, that the signals would have spread all the way from Oshkosh, Wisconsin into baseball history. It is entirely probable that there were scattered instances of Hoy (or other early deaf players such as Dummy Taylor and Ed Dundon) communicating with the umpires through hand signals, but that is not the same thing as saying that their eventual adoption grew from those incidents.

In his research, Bill Deane found an 1888 article that describes how Hoy is alerted to calls on the field by his third base coach, who raised his right hand for a strike, his left hand for a ball. This is also shown in the film, but it’s never explained how the signals spread from the coaches to the umpires. It may not be unreasonable to assume that the umpires simply copied the coaches, but one would have to explain why the umpires first felt an obligation to provide interpretation for deaf players when their coaches were already fulfilling that function. Furthermore, a 1909 Spalding guide claims that it was only within “two to three years” of then that “Base Ball critics in the East and West began agitating the question of signalling by the umpires to announce their decisions.” Hoy, who retired in 1902, is not mentioned in the article. In fact, it seems that Hoy was never brought up in the context of introducing signs until Sam Crawford named him in The Glory of their Times in 1966. Of course, it makes plenty of intuitive sense that hand signals would be instituted for a deaf player, but the facts show that this was not the case.

Hoy’s case is easier to dismiss than Klem’s, but there are still questions regarding the latter. As mentioned above, there is never an explicit connection made with Klem, despite his boasts to the contrary. He began his career in 1905, which is around the time given by the 1909 Spalding guide. Other researchers, however, have given credit for arm signals to Cy Rigler, who began umpiring in 1904. Among these is Dan Krueckeberg, whose article on the topic appeared in the 1985 edition of SABR’s The National Pastime. In the film, it might not be clear to viewers that Klem and Hoy never actually appeared together on the field—their myths are mutually exclusive.

Neither Signs of the Time nor current research can definitively say who introduced umpire signs in baseball. It was almost certainly not Dummy Hoy, since it did not become widespread until after his retirement, and because it was never attributed to him until over 60 years later. It could well have been either Klem or Rigler; in fact, Klem’s Hall of Fame plaque names him as the originator, but this again is due in part to his own myth-making. Another likely possibility is a slow metamorphosis, going from non-specific emphatic arm movements to the current, highly codified repertoire of indicators. Whatever the details of the process may be, it is perhaps fans who deserve the most credit, as their agitation helped persuade the umps to adopt the signals. As for the film, it does a good deal of dancing around the question. In spite of this and because of it, Signs is a rewarding experience for baseball fans of recent and later vintage.

Signs of the Time has not yet been released. More details are available at the film’s website, www.signsofthetimemovie.com.