WEBVTT - Reading the Signs 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440 the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.119 of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:28.840 waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.280 If you've ever watched a baseball game closely, you'll notice 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.120 something particular about the way the players communicate. There's not 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:45.080 a lot of shouting on the field. Much of the 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.680 way players talk is through hand signals and body language, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.200 and this isn't surprising. After all, sports stadiums are noisy places, 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:58.240 and in baseball, every play needs to happen with clockwork efficiency. 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.800 A pitcher and a catcher also need to strategize without 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.080 the batter knowing what pitch will come next. Quick clear 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.720 communication is the difference between a win and a loss. 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.520 In the year nineteen hundred, the New York Giants brought 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:14.840 a pitcher up from the minor leagues to finish out 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.160 their season. His name was Luther Taylor, a twenty six 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.200 year old from a small town in Kansas. He wanted 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.399 to be a boxer, as a kid, but his parents 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.640 didn't approve, so he became a baseball player instead. As 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.120 soon as he joined the Giants, people thought this rookie 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:32.639 wouldn't be up to the task of the major leagues. 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.520 He was in over his head, didn't have what it takes. 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.680 In a game against Boston, five players on the other 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.360 team attempted to steal third base, assuming that Taylor wouldn't 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.199 be alert enough to throw them out, but he did 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.800 one after the other. He did this all without saying 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:50.960 a word, and because of that he would earn the 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.800 nickname Dummy Taylor. Now, in spite of the rude nickname, 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.800 he was a popular member of the team. His teammates 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.800 would remember him as a steady hand on the pitching mound. 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:05.120 The rookie, who everyone expected to underperform, closed the season 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.160 with a respectable pitching record, and the Giants chose to 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.240 bring him back for the nineteen oh one season. That year, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.519 he held the second highest record for most games pitched, 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.240 but unfortunately, the Giants suffered from a weak hitting record, 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.639 so they didn't perform as well as Taylor pitched. In 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.640 nineteen oh two, he left the Giants persuaded by a 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.639 higher salary from the Cleveland Broncos. He was almost immediately 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.160 miserable in the team though the rest of the team 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.760 were uncommunicative with him, and he fell out. But the 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:37.200 money was good and he was in the major leagues, 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.440 and so he kept pitching. And then in May of 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:43.720 that year, a familiar face appeared in the stands. It 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.840 was Frank Bauerman, a catcher from the New York Giants, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.160 and every time Taylor walked between the mound and the dugouts, 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.919 Bauerman signaled at him with sign language, asking him back 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.799 to the Giants and making an offer, And every time 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:01.200 he signed, Taylor would shake his head. Doorman kept signing 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.320 at him, increasing the amount of money they were offering Taylor, 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.119 and finally Taylor nodded yes and left Cleveland for good 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.399 that evening. He pitched with the Giants until nineteen oh eight, 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:14.239 before going back down to the minor leagues and finishing 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:18.079 his career in nineteen ten. He had played nine seasons 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.840 of professional baseball, earned himself a respectable record as a 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:26.040 major league pitcher, all while having a very specific disability. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.400 You see, Luther Taylor was born deaf. His nickname Dummy 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.240 was not a crack at his intelligence, but a reference 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.920 to the fact that he didn't speak verbally. Think of 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.400 the phrase to be dumbstruck. He communicated only with sign language. 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.960 Every man in the nineteen oh one New York Giants 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.360 team learned sign language in order to communicate with him 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.840 on and off the field. It was a level of 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.960 commitment and inclusion that understandably he was sad to leave, 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.640 and that's why he felt so out of place in Cleveland, 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.000 where his teammates didn't know sign language and thus struggled 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.520 to communicate with the one deaf player they had. Taylor 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.160 wasn't the first person to use hand signs on a 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.800 baseball field, though, but his success popularized the practice in 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.320 the public imagination. In fact, during his early career, it 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.040 led to a game that disability rights advocates see as historic. 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.599 You see on March sixteenth of nineteen oh two, nine 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.320 days after his return from Cleveland, Luther Taylor took to 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.240 the mound to pitch against the Cincinnati Reds. On the 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:30.320 opposing team, center fielder William Ellsworth Hoy came up to 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.880 bat as their leadoff hitter. Hoy was forty years old 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.120 on his last season for the Reds, and he was 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.599 also another deaf player who went by the nickname Dummy. 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.480 This game was the first and only time two deaf 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.560 players had faced each other in the major leagues, and 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.240 because of that, the fact had been well publicized. The 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.520 stands filled with around five thousand deaf and hard of 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.719 hearing baseball fans. To these people, Taylor and Hoy's presence 0:04:55.760 --> 0:05:00.839 on the field spoke loud and clear, no hand signals required. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.919 There was a thick gray mist that was heavy in 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.080 the air on the morning of October fourth, of seventeen 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.760 seventy seven. The air was damp and already cold. It 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.720 would be another few hours before the first rooster crowed, 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.560 and the moon was still high overhead. Already, George Washington 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.960 was hard at work. More accurately, George Washington and every 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.000 soldier at his disposal were hard at work. Four months 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:42.200 had passed since the British had seized Philadelphia, the revolutionary capital. 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.440 The Continental Army had made several unsuccessful attempts to retake it, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.400 But today Washington had a plan. Early in the morning, 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:55.239 long before sunrise, American soldiers would split into several groups 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.280 and ambush the British at their base camp before they 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.960 even woke up. The surprise attack would give them the 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.440 edge that they'd been missing in previous battles. Washington hoped 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.120 it would be enough. Already, the weather was getting cold, 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.240 his soldiers were exhausted, and he lost good men in 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.960 every battle over the past year, and so it would 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.200 soon be too cold to do anything but survive this plan. 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.360 This morning would be their last chance to take back 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:23.280 the city before spring. Unfortunately, the mysts that hid them 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.520 from their enemies also hid the men from each other. 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.320 You may have heard soldiers talk about the fog of war, 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.240 but in this case, there really was a fog. Thick 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.400 morning mist made it almost impossible to tell who was 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.640 fighting on which side. Two groups of American soldiers fired 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.400 on one another after mistaking the other side for the 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.200 British army, and in all of that confusion, the British 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.279 managed to escape. General William Howe, who had captured the 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.960 city in July, rode swiftly away from the battlefield after 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.479 hearing shots. He assumed that a rebel scouting party was 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.080 exchanging fire with patrolmen until the south of bullets followed 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.400 him and his men out of their camp. Washington's plan 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.000 the last hope of the Continental Army, had failed, not 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.120 because of a mistake or because he was outsmarted, but 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.520 because the fog literally caused mass confusion among everyone, from 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:21.160 the revolutionary soldiers to the British generals, and even to Lila. Lila, 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.320 you see, was a sweet fox terrier who had followed 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.160 her owner into the melee and then followed the Americans 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.320 when they eventually retreated. The soldiers were dirty, exhausted, freezing, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.600 and embarrassed. They were angry. They wanted revenge. They wanted 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.600 to go home. When one of the men spotted the 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.160 well groomed dog back at the camp and picked her up, 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.080 he saw a shining silver color around her neck. These 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.480 men were so cold and so hungry, and yet here 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.600 was a dog who looked like she lived better than 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.320 they did. To add insult to injury, Lila's owner had 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.320 engraved his name on the gleaming silver collar. She belonged 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.880 to none other than General William Howe. A few of 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.880 the men, including the soldier who had found her, brought 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:07.560 Lilah to Washington. They were still stinging with defeat, and 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.280 they wanted Lilah, with her plump belly and saft fur 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.480 to pay the price, they asked Washington to hold her 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:18.680 in retribution for their defeat. Fortunately, the formidable General Washington 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.640 was what we might call a dog person. He kept 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.960 many pets and had several hunting dogs himself. In fact, 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.000 Lafayette once gifted Washington with seven greyhounds as a show 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:33.560 of friendship. So what did the brilliant strategist, the war general, 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.280 and the first President of the United States do with 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:40.880 his enemy's dog? While he instructed Alexander Hamilton to write 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.480 General how a letter which would be delivered to the 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.840 British soldier's camp under a flag of truce. And this 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:51.400 is what the letter said. General Washington's compliments to General Howe, 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.400 he does himself the pleasure to return him a dog 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:58.119 which accidentally fell into his hands, and by the inscription 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.400 on the collar, appears to belowung to General how Now. 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.800 Not only that, but Washington also insisted Lila be brushed 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.160 and fed before she was returned. The dog had done 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.800 nothing wrong, after all, and she would be treated with 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.800 respect and gentleness, the way Washington hoped that his own 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.880 hounds would be if the roles had been reversed. The 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.240 following day, Lilah was delivered to her owner. Along with 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.880 Washington's note, One British officer wrote that How was so 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.400 happy to see her that he picked her straight up 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.520 and put her on his lap. Washington's original letter to 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.400 General How can be found in the National Archives today, 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.320 although any response from General How has vanished with time. 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.800 George Washington accomplished many things during his time serving the 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.360 United States as both the General and a president, but 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:50.200 this story shows his integrity, generosity, and grace even in defeat, 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.000 and as far as we know, Lila never complained. After all, 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:58.120 as they say, a dog is a great judge of character. 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.120 I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.760 of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Manke 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.520 in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.840 Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:17.920 more about the show and the people who make it 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.560 over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.600 a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.800 available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook, 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.319 and if you're looking for an ad free option. Consider 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.640 joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.880 the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.080 sign up over at patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, and 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.840 until next time, stay curious.