Sports

Dizzy Dean – St Louis Cardinals Biography, Career Highlights and Facts

Biography, Stories, and Facts About Dizzy Dean

In the day before the media published every word spoken by a sports star, Dizzy Dean entertained fans, the media and the world like very few sports stars have. Dizzy Dean was a natural clown who loved to make everyone around him smile. Few baseball players have done better and the stories that have been told about his life are legendary.

Before the 1934 season, Dizzy made the outlandish prediction that he and his brother Paul would win more than 40 games in one season. They didn’t win 40, they won 49! Dean won 30 games in 1934 in one of the best seasons a major league pitcher has ever had. Dean led the infamous Gashouse Gang to the National League pennant and a World Series game with the Detroit Tigers. It was in Detroit that Dizzy Dean would be loved by fans across America and established him as one of the greatest pitchers and most entertaining baseball players of all time.

Before Dizzy Dean made his first pitch, he made his presence felt. The day before Game 1, Dean joined the rival Detroit Tigers during batting practice. There he could be seen showing off to the Tigers team, taunting his players and practicing batting using Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg’s baseball bat. After that, he entertained the media by fighting with the skin of a tiger and playing with the stadium band. Love him or hate him, Dizzy Dean had a knack for making everyone around him smile.

While Dizzy was a ton of fun before the game, he was quite a business after he started. In Game 1, Dean struck out six in an 8-3 victory. In Game 4, he entered the game as a pinch runner. When a groundball was hit short end, he ran to second base to break a double play and was hit in the head with the baseball. Dean ended up in the hospital with a head injury. The next day’s headline was fun and heartwarming for the Cardinal fan at the same time. The headline read “Dean’s head X-ray reveals nothing.”

Despite his head injury, Dean returned for Game 7 and released a masterpiece. He allowed only one running back to reach third base and clinch the World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Dizzy Dean Interesting Facts:

  • One day while journalists were interviewing him, Dizzy Dean told each of them a different story from his life. Later, he said that he did this because everyone wanted exclusive stories.
  • In the 1934 World Series, Dean won two games for the Cardinals, while his brother won the other two. This is the only time that two brothers have won all four games of the World Series.
  • He was so confident in his fastball that he would yell at the approaching players.
  • Dean was one of the few white baseball players to go on devastating tours with black pitcher Satchell Paige.
  • Dizzy Dean had a movie made in his honor called “The Pride of St. Louis.”

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