Reflections on the death of Jerome 'Dizzy' Dean

The Southeast Missourian reported the death of baseball legend Jerome "Dizzy" Dean, 63, on its front page on July 17, 1974. An article by Missourian sports editor B. Ray Owen brought the sad news to the newspaper's readers, and an Associated Press article was published on the front of the Sports section the same day.

Dean died early that day of heart failure at St. Mary's Hospital in Reno, Nevada, having suffered a severe heart attack two days earlier. His wife, Patricia; brother, Paul "Daffy" Dean, and Paul's two children were at the bedside. Dizzy and his wife had no children.

The AP story gave an overview of Dizzy's professional baseball career: "Dean won 150 games in the major leagues, including 27 shutouts, and lost 83. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1953."

Owen's article, however, provided a look at the pitcher's ties to Cape Girardeau, as did a followup story written by G.D. Fronabarger.

Jerome "Dizzy" Dean, left, fresh from Texas and still wearing his 10-gallon hat, is shown with his brother, Paul "Daffy" Dean of the St. Louis Browns, as Paul warmed up for a game Sunday, April 4, 1943, at Fairground (Capaha) Park in Cape Girardeau. (G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive)

Published Wednesday, July 17, 1974, in the Southeast Missourian:

DIZZY DEAN IS BASEBALL LEGEND

"I'll strike out 15 of those Capahas. I could beat those bush leaguers pitching left-handed. Those Cape boys might at well leave their bats at home." -- Dizzy Dean.

BY RAY OWEN
Missourian Sports Editor

Jerome Herman Dean, a former migratory cotton picker who rose to the heights of baseball pitching fame, is dead at age 63.

Known throughout the sports word as Dizzy, or Diz, Dean became a baseball legend for his brashness, and braggadocio. But more times than not, the big right-hander would make a brag and follow through on it.

Southeast Missouri's older baseball fans, however, recall an instance in Dizzy's younger days when the Arkansas native had to "eat some words."

It was on an October day in 1931, and Dean, who had just completed a 26-10 minor league season at a St. Louis farm club, Houston, was wintering in Charleston.

And, to keep his pitching arm sharp, he was tossing the old pill for a Charleston semi-pro team. Coming up was a big game with the Cape Girardeau Capahas.

Elam Vangilder, who had been around the pro circuit, too, with the St. Louis Browns, had been engaged to pitch for the Capahas.

"I thought I would have some opposition," said Dean prior to the game. "And here they're throwing an old man at me."

Vangilder, who had piled up some headlines of his own, was 31 at the time, and Dean, who had signed with the St. Louis Cardinals the year before, was 20.

"Why, I could beat those Cape boys pitching left-handed," said Dean.

Well, big Elam stole the show. Using a sizzling fast ball, Vangilder fanned 22 and captured the 4-0 Capaha decision, before a crowd of some 1,700 fans.

Diz finished up with nine strikeouts.

The following year, 1932, Dizzy was in a Cardinal uniform, and in 1934 had his best season, winning 30 games and pitching the Cardinals to National League and World Series titles.

Dizzy, who claimed he got his first pair of shoes while serving in the Army, had a brief career, cut short when he was struck on the toe by a line drive, but won 150 games in the majors, including 27 shutouts.

His career ended while playing for Chicago's Cubs in 1940, but he wasn't through with the sports world, becoming a "sports commultator," using this down-home twang to win his way into the hearts of millions of fans, with perhaps his most favorite among listeners being that old phrase, "He slud into base."

Published Thursday, July 18, 1974, in the Southeast Missourian:

A REMEMBRANCE OF DIZZY DEAN IN CAPE

By G.D. FRONABARGER

Dizzy Dean was ready for some kind of a Hall of Fame the first time he set foot in Cape Girardeau, and that was quite some years before his exploits became properly enshrined in the Cooperstown, New York, baseball shrine.

Already his hard fastball's smack against the catcher's mitt had been heard 'round the world and his free-style language, embodying about every expression of grassroots country, combined to make him immediately know when he came to Cape. Diz never need an introduction -- everyone knew him instantly.

It was noon, and a nice day (Saturday, Oct. 1, 1932). "Chili" Simpson was formally opening his Colonial Tavern, the big frame structure which, with modern additions still keeps Broadway from going any farther west than Kingshighway. The old "Gas House Gang" of which Diz and his brother, Paul, were so big a part, honored "Chili" by coming down from St. Louis and formally opening the new business place at a luncheon. The dean brothers' parents were along. But there was a thorn in Diz' side that day, a sharp chiding runt by the name of Pepper Martin, who kept regaling Diz about his pitching control. The big thunderballer slammed his tormentor with a baked potato -- "How's that for control, Podner?" Then we had silence.

His moods were as interesting as the weather. He scattered his tangy barbs all over the old St. Louis Browns training camp here in 1944. Diz was here because of Paul, who had a go with Manager Luke Sewell's outlet that year. He had one of those voices that delivered well above the other camp roarings.

During intra-squad games and those with the Brown's Triple A farm club, Toledo Mudhens of the American Association, managed by Ollie Marquardt, Diz could be heard above everyone shouting such darts as "Hold in there, Podner," "Get that slider workin'," "Don't kill the batter, just throw it past him," all meant good naturedly, but instructively to such hurlers as Steve Sundra, Al Hollingsworth, John Higgeling, Bob Muncrief, Fred Sanford, Vern Stevens, Sam Zoldak, Nelson Potter, Newman Shirley and yes, even big Jack Jacucki. Catchers Joe Schultz and Frank Mancuso cringed behind their face masks and chest protectors and wondered what would come next.

But, these barbs were from the Old Master. And everybody out there knew it and accepted it.

I recall that during one of the camp games Manager Sewell was running his pitchers in and out to give them all a little work. Infielders and outfielders, among them Don Hefner, Chet Laabs, George McQuinn,, Frank Demaree, Mike Krevich, Mark Christman, Milton Byrnes and Glenn McQuillen, were busy shagging fly balls and grounders.

Then Diz boomed from the sidelines, "If I was out there on that mound, you fellers out there in the pasture could come in and take a rest!"

Diz was always a central figure in the training camp "bull sessions," held nightly in parlors off the Marquette Hotel mezzanine, when the good and the bad of the day's workouts were aired. He'd get into some lively arguments with Sewell and Coaches Fred Hoffman and Zach Taylor. And, in particular, he enjoyed needling Don M. Barnes, the Browns' owner. And, Diz was always ready to entertain with his "Wabash Cannonball" song when the chit-chat slumped a bit.

Diz was a magnet for kids. They stormed him at the Capaha Park training camp grounds and at the Arena Building, where workouts were held during bad weather. But, he was accommodating and remarked one day after a particularly eager youngster had held up a baseball for a signature: "This sure gets tirin' sometimes, but you never can tell when the gleam in a kid's eye means somethin' good for baseball someday."

Whenever the pitching great was displeased, he was more than often quite verbal about it. It wasn't long after he had been sent up to Chicago's Cubs that one of these incidents occurred.

I was working in the newsroom late one afternoon and, leaving, had walked up the street for a cigar. It was Thursday, which I remembered a little late. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I was scheduled to provide the program for the Kiwanis Club that evening -- just a bare hour hence. Walking with head down and trying to pick a way out of this dilemma, a loud voice from the Marquette Hotel corner shocked me into reality.

"Hey -- where you goin'?"

Ole Diz walked over to join me, then added, "Have you et yet?"

"Nope," says I, "but, Diz, I know just the place where you can get a free meal, that is -- all you'll have to do is talk a little baseball."

"Let's go, Podner, I'm hungry."

And that night the St Louis Cardinals were described as about anything but a place for a young fellow to start his baseball career.

The only appearance of Dizzy Dean speaking to the Cape Girardeau Kiwanis Club that I have been able to find occurred on Friday, Aug. 4, 1950, not the Thursday afternoon Fronabarger remembered.

But that was the only thing he got wrong about the event.

A Missourian article published Saturday, Aug. 5, 1950:

DIZZY DEAN, IN CAPE, ABLE, WILLING TO STAND UP AND SPEAK HIS PIECE

'Ole Diz' Dean, ex-major league pitching great, now developing a rotund appearance and snow on the roof, regaled the Kiwanis Club with some of his baseball experiences while a guest of the group last night at Colonial Tavern. Dean had been in Cape Girardeau Friday with a tryout camp conducted by the New York Yankees, with which he is now connected.

Dean is still affable as ever. But, slaughtering the king's English in the same manner that he used to fog baseballs over the plate, Dizzy unloaded on the baseball club that brought him fame as one of the big league's greatest pitchers. It was plain that Jerome Herman has no love for the St. Louis Cardinals.

His chief complaint among several was the stipend he drew during his prime year with the Cards, during 1934, when he won 30 games, the last time such a record has been made by a major league hurler. That year, Dean said, he was paid $7,500, and when he asked for a raise at the end of the world series he was laughed at.

Is doing all right

Dizzy just plain doesn't care for his old organization. The three greatest thrills he ever had, he said, was when he was first signed to a contract, when the Cardinals sold him to the Chicago Cubs and when he joined the Yankee organization, where he says he makes far more now than he ever did with the Cards.

Dizzy admits he lost a few ball games in his time. Those were bad days when he'd get his brains knocked out, he observed, and such a thing nearly happened when he got beaned in the 1934 world series trying to cover first base for a put out. The ball beaned him and "bounced out into right field," as he put it, and he vaguely remembers being carried off the field on a stretcher.

Nothing there

The next day the world was put at ease, he recalled, when after x-ray examinations indicated nothing amiss and the newspapers came out with the headline, "Dean's Head Shows Nothing."

Then he recalled one day down in Charleston when he pitched an exhibition game and was opposed by Elam Vangilder, Cape Girardeau's own.

"I was going to show 'em a thing or two that day," Diz said, "but I got my brains knocked out. When I was worn out and could hardly see the hitter, Old Elam, who was old enough to be my grandfather, was still foggin' 'em across the plate and gettin' better every pitch."...