Yesterday was loafing along US 49 when I noticed the Dizzy Dean Rest Stop.
Once there I found an interesting man's story for this unique February 29th day.
I actually had never heard of Dizzy Dean before, since I or my family were not active sports fans.
However in my golden years I come to appreciate a good man's life story.
Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean, also known as Jerome Herman Dean, was an American professional baseball pitcher.
During his Major League Baseball career, he played for the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Browns.
In five outstanding seasons (1932–36), Dean, a right-hander, won 120 games, leading the league four times in complete games and four times in strikeouts.
He was known for winning 30 games in 1934 while leading the "Gashouse Gang" Cardinals to the National League pennant and the World Series win over the Detroit Tigers.
The 1934 season would be Dean’s greatest and one of the memorable performances by any pitcher in history. His brother Paul joined the St. Louis pitching staff for the 1934 season, and though Paul had never pitched in the major leagues, Dean promised reporters before the season began that “me ’n Paul” would win forty-five games. For once, Dean underestimated himself, as he won thirty games (making Dean the last National League pitcher to win thirty in a season), while Paul won nineteen, for a Dean family total of forty-nine wins. Dean’s 30–7 record gained him the National League’s most valuable player award, and he was voted by the fans to the 1934 all-star game.
The 1934 World Series was the first national radio broadcast of the October classic, and the Deans made the most of the national spotlight, winning two games each as the Cardinals won the series.
Dean’s playing career essentially came to an end almost three years later. He had won twelve games by the all-star break of the 1937 season and was the starting pitcher for the National Leaguers in that exhibition game. The last batter Dean was to face, Earl Averill, hit a line drive that struck Dean’s big toe on his left foot. Dean left the field seemingly unhurt, but his toe had been broken. Only ten days later, however, he was back on the mound pitching. Due to the pain, he could not throw normally, but he continued to attempt to pitch as frequently as he had in the past. An arm injury resulted and effectively ended at its peak one of the brightest pitching careers of the 1930s. For the remainder of the 1937 season, Dean won only one game as he rested his arm for extended weeks and refrained from pitching in an attempt to regain his fastball.
He retired early in the 1941 season.
Dizzy Dean found new employment by moving his talking from the baseball field to the broadcast booth.
A St. Louis radio station that broadcast the home games of the Cardinals and the American League’s St. Louis Browns provided the opportunity.
Dean was part of the first generation of former players to use their first-hand knowledge of the game to become a baseball broadcaster, and Dean was the first announcer to make humor a regular part of his broadcast.
His love & wife Pat brought him to her home state of Mississippi.
However, he is long gone from coastal Mississippi, where the Baseball Hall of Famer spent his final years fishing, playing golf and living life fully in the tiny pineywoods community of Bond, three miles north of Wiggins.
That's the story & I'm sticking to it!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Feb 29th day!
Nana
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