Dizzy Dean
| Dizzy Dean | |
|---|---|
| Pitcher | |
| Born: January 16, 1910 | |
| Died: July 17 1974 (aged 64) | |
| Batted: Right | Threw: Right |
| MLB debut | |
| September 28, 1930 for the St. Louis Cardinals | |
| Final game | |
| September 28, 1947 for the St. Louis Browns | |
| Career statistics | |
| Pitching record | 150-83 |
| Earned run average | 3.02 |
| Strikeouts | 1163 |
| Teams | |
| |
| Career highlights and awards | |
| |
Jerome Hanna "Dizzy" Dean (January 16, 1910 – July 17, 1974) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was born in Lucas, Arkansas, and was a life-long resident of Wiggins, Mississippi. He was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals (1930-1937), the Chicago Cubs (1938-1941), and briefly for the St. Louis Browns (1947).
Early Life
Dizzy Dean was born on January 16, 1910 to Albert Monroe Dean and Alma Nelson Dean. His childhood was very hard due to his mother's death from tuberculosis at the age of eight, and lack of attention from his dad. The family moved to Yell County in 1920, and later to Oklahoma in 1924. He began to miss school frequently after his mom's death, dropping out altogether when he joined the army in 1926, at the age of 16.
Baseball Career
Minor League
Dean learned the fundamentals of pitching while serving in the United States Army, which he left in 1929 to pursue a baseball career. At his tryout for the St. Louis Cardinals he dazzled and amazed the scouts when he struck out three batters on only nine pitches. He was later called back by the team for a second look and repeated his earlier accomplishment, a feat that earned him a contract with their minon league affiliate, St.Joseph. He played for the minor league club in 1930 and 1931, and in the same year married his wife Patricia Nash on June 15, 1931. Dizzy started his major league career the next season when he was promoted to the big league club in 1932.
Major Leagues
Dean's first full year in the big leagues showed the baseball world his amazing potential when he finished the season with 18 wins and 15 losses, with a ERA (Earned Run Average, or the number of runs allowed per nine innings of work) of 3.30. He finished 19th in the MVP balloting that year, proof that the baseball world had started to notice Dean's talent.
In the following season in 1933 he finished the season with a record of 20 wins and 18 losses, improved his ERA to 3.04, and lowered his walk total by 38. He was beginning to improve the control of his fastball, especially bewildering the Chicago Cubs batters with 17 strikeouts during a contest against the club on July 30, 1933. Dean finished 7th in MVP balloting in the 1933 season, and seemed ready for a breakout year.
1934 Season
The Gashouse Gang, the nickname for the Cardinals pitching roster, quickly became "America's Team," largely because of the Dean brothers and Pepper Martin. These players became folk heroes in Depression-ravaged America, who saw in these players, dirty and hustling rather than handsome and graceful, a spirit of hard work and perseverance, as opposed to the haughty, highly-paid New York Giants, whom the Cardinals were chasing for the National League pennant.
Before the start of the 1934 season, Dizzy predicted that him and his brother Paul, a teammate of Dizzy's, would win a combined 45 games during the year. This would prove to be the year of years for the big right hander as he would finish the year with a record of 30-7, 195 strikeouts, and the National League Most Valuable Player award. His prediction of 45 combined wins also came true as when all was said and done his brother and him finished the year with 49 total wins. His personal win total for the 1934 season would only be matched once in the next half-century when it was done by Denny McLain in 1968.
The success of the Dean's was infections to the whole team, as they progressed all the way to the 1934 World Series to face off with the Detroit Tigers. During the World Series the brothers accounted for all of the team's wins, and led them to the title, but it was Dizzy who came through in the clutch when he shut out the Detroit team 11-0 in the pivotal Game 7.
In Game 4 of the 1934 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, Dean was sent to first base as a pinch runner. The next batter hit a ground ball that looked like a sure double play. Intent on avoiding the twin killing, Dean threw himself in front of the throw to first. The ball struck him on the head, and Dean was knocked unconscious and taken to a hospital. Although the Tigers went on the win the game 10-4, Dean recovered, clearing out the cobwebs in time to pitch in Games 5.
When the Cardinals arrived in Detroit for the start of the World Series, Dean, still in his street clothes, walked up to batting cage during the Tigers practice. Dean grabbed a bat from a Tigers coach, and blasted a pitch over the fence, and turned to the coach and said, "I'm the worst hitter on our club."
Continued Success
In the 1935 season, Dean continued his hot pitching when he amassed a record of 28-12, with an ERA of 3.04. While his numbers suggested a successful season, numerous problems with Dean's attitude led to distractions away from the field, and limited the team's success.
These distractions continued in this next year with the team, as we went 24-13 with a 3.17 ERA, and finished the year second in MVP balloting for the second consecutive year.
In 1937 Dean was fighting fatigue and wanted to skip the All-Star Game but followed the instructions of the team owner Sam Breadon and reported to Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. It would prove to be a bad decision, as a line drive struck off the bad of Earl Averill fractured Dean's toe in the third inning of the 8-3 loss for the National League. When told that his big toe was "fractured," Dean said, "Fractured, hell, the damn thing's broken!" Trying to pitch before his toe was completely healed, Dean put too much strain on his throwing arm, and threw it out putting a virtual end to his pitching career.
With the lack of his great fastball, he was traded by his greedy General Manager Branch Rickey for three players and $185,000, one of the most expensive loss-leader contracts in baseball history to the Chicago Cubs. The dead-armed Dean had his last good moment when he finished his career pitching in the 1938 World Series known as "Ol' Diz's Last Stand". With nothing more than his wit left, Dean held a 3-2 led over the New York Yankees, until Joe DiMaggio and Frank Crosetti hit him with late home runs leading to a 2-0 led for the Yankees in the series.
He limped along for the Cubs until 1941, when he retired. Between the ages of 23 and 27, he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball; by 28, he was just another pitcher, and at 31 he was done.
Dizzy Dean made a one-game comeback on September 28, 1947. After retiring as a player, the perennially cash-poor Browns hired the still-popular Dean as a broadcaster to drum up some badly needed publicity. After broadcasting several poor pitching performances in a row, he grew frustrated, saying on the air, "Doggone it, I can pitch better than nine out of the ten guys on this staff!" The wives of the Browns pitchers complained, and management, needing to sell tickets somehow, took him up on his offer and had him pitch the last game of the season. At age 37, Dean pitched four innings, allowing no runs, and rapped a single in his only at-bat. Rounding first base, he pulled his hamstring. Returning to the broadcast booth at the end of the game, he said, "I said I can pitch better than nine of the ten guys on the staff, and I can. But I'm done. Talking's my game now, and I'm just glad that muscle I pulled wasn't in my throat."
Sportscaster
He became a well-known sportscaster, famous for his wit and often-colorful butchering of the English language. Much like football star-turned-sportscaster Terry Bradshaw years later, he chose to build on, rather than counter, his image as a not-too-bright country boy, as a way of entertaining fans: "The Good Lord was good to me. He gave me a strong right arm, a good body, and a weak mind." He once saw Browns outfielder Al Zarilla slide into base, and said, "Zarilla slud into third!" Later, doing a game on CBS, he said, over the open mike, "I don't know why they're calling this the Game of the Week. There's a much better game, Dodgers and Giants, over on NBC." Every so often, he would sign off by saying, "Don't fail to miss tomorrow's game!" These manglings of the language only endeared him to fans, pre-cursing such beloved ballplayers-turned-broadcasters as Ralph Kiner, Herb Score and Jerry Coleman.
An English teacher once wrote to him, complaining that he shouldn't use the word "ain't" on the air, as it was a bad example to children. On the air, Dean said, "A lot of folks who ain't sayin' 'ain't,' ain't eatin'. So, Teach, you learn 'em English, and I'll learn 'em baseball."[1]
Dean is often blamed for sportscasters' fond misuse of the word, "nonchalant". Once describing a player who had struck out, Dean reportedly said, "he nonchalantly walks back to the dugout in disgust."
On December 5, 2006, Dean was nominated for the Ford Frick Award, which enshrines legendary announcers of the sport into the broadcasters wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Dizzy Dean's Success and Swagger
For all of Dean's success on the field, he was known for making quite a bit of money off of it as well. Dean became one of the forerunners in the baseball world for making revenue for off the field endorsements. Under his Wife's direction, Dizzy became genius at exploiting the media and making money off anything from clothing, caps, to toothbrushes. The media was very favorable to the young pitcher, and instead of finding his cockiness as a negative, they wrote of him being confident and non bothersome. Sometimes though Dizzy Dean took it too far, such as the time he threw hittable pitches to Pittsburgh Pirate hitters because he was disgusted with the umpiring. One time during a exhibition game in St.Pall, Minnesota, he refused to take the field for the game, leading to writers all over the country expressing their opinions that he had a duty to the game.
Legacy
By the early 1970's, Dean's weight had ballooned to approximately 300 pounds. Dean died at age 64 in Reno, Nevada of a massive heart attack. Although Dean would sometimes be questioned for his off the field antics and actions, no one could doubt his pitching ability. He finished his career with a 3.02 ERA and 150 wins to only 83 losses. He was a clutch pitcher when it counted, especially in the World Series, and usually backed him the promises he would make for his play on the field. Despite having what amounted to only half a career, in 1999, he ranked Number 85 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. A Dizzy Dean Museum was established at 1152 Lakeland Drive in Jackson, Mississippi. The building was significantly expanded, and the Dean exhibit is now part of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, located adjacent to Smith-Wills Stadium, a minor-league baseball park. The street leading into it is named for another Baseball Hall-of-Famer who lived in Mississippi, Negro Leagues legend James "Cool Papa" Bell.
Career statistics
| W | L | ERA | G | GS | CG | SHO | SV | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO |
| 150 | 83 | 3.02 | 317 | 230 | 154 | 26 | 30 | 1967 | 1919 | 661 | 95 | 453 | 1163 |
See also
- List of Major League Baseball saves champions
- List of Major League Baseball strikeout champions
- List of Major League Baseball wins champions
- Major League Baseball titles leaders
- http://www.dizzydeanbbinc.org/
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- The Sporting News, 1983. "Cooperstown, Where Baseball Legends Live Forever". The Sporting News Publishing. ISBN 0-8922041315
- Crepeau, R. 1980. "Baseball: America's Diamond mind, 1919-1941". University Presses of Florida. ISBN 0-813006457
- [1]]
External links
- Baseball-Reference.com - Major league career statistics
- Template:Bbhof
| Preceded by: Bill Hallahan |
National League Strikeout Champion 1932-1935 |
Succeeded by: Van Mungo |
| Preceded by: Carl Hubbell |
National League Most Valuable Player 1934 |
Succeeded by: Gabby Hartnett |
| Preceded by: Carl Hubbell |
Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year 1934 |
Succeeded by: Joe Louis |
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