Troy Kotsur made history by becoming the first deaf male actor to win an Oscar for his role as Frank Rossi in the film “CODA” in 2022.
Now he wants to make history again but this time by getting a relatively obscure baseball player named William “Dummy” Hoy inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and adapting his story to the big screen.
Hoy, who played for the Cincinnati Reds and several other MLB teams in the late 1800s, became deaf as a child due to meningitis. He went on to become one of baseball’s early stars – and is credited with helping inspire the visual hand signals still used throughout baseball today but no deaf baseball player has ever been inducted into Cooperstown.
“He’s like the Jackie Robinson of the deaf community,” Kotsur tells Page Six Hollywood of Hoy, noting that he first heard his story when he was eight years old at a school for the deaf. But he is having a revival.
A documentary short film on Hoy’s life and legacy, “Silent No More,” is currently in production as part of the “Sign for Hoy” campaign which launches today with backing from DEAFinitely for All Entertainment, Kotsur, “Dancing with the Stars” champ Nyle DiMarco, Cincinnati Reds announcer Marty Brennaman, former UFC fighter Matt Hamill and former MLB players Albert Pujols and Curtis Pride.
“This is a mission to not only get Dummy Hoy into the Hall of Fame and make him culturally relevant, but to create a platform for deaf advocacy so that people are familiar with deaf heroes,” says Shawn Ullman, founder of agency Flexdef and president of the Sign for Hoy campaign. “You can’t tell the complete history of baseball without telling Dummy Hoy’s story.”
A documentary short film on Hoy’s life and legacy, “Silent No More,” is currently in production and will also be released later this year but Kotsur has also been discussing a full length feature.
“It would definitely be great to make a movie about Dummy Hoy. I don’t think I can play the character because I’m too tall, but maybe I could direct or produce. I would love to make something based on real history.”
“Not even all the deaf community knows about Dummy Hoy. It’s a story that is untold,” adds DEAFinitely for All co-CEO Brenda Linkous. “There’s so many kids who could have deaf representation. They could see someone that they could look up to.”