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Dizzy Dean - Became Beloved Baseball Broadcaster

Dean soon took his act to the Cardinals' broadcast booth, where the ungrammatical, chatty farm boy was an instant success. For Dean, slide became "slid, slide, slud." Fielders "threwed" the ball, and runners returned to their "respectable" bases. English teachers cringed, but fans roared. Dean later did network telecasts and turned the CBS-TV Game of the Week into a household favorite. In 1953, Dean was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Career Statistics

Yr Team W L ERA GS CG SHO IP H R BB SO
CHI: Chicago Cubs; STL: St. Louis Cardinals; STL-B: St. Louis Browns.
1930 STL 1 0 1.0 1 1 0 9 3 1 3 5
1932 STL 18 15 3.30 33 16 4 286 280 105 102 191
1933 STL 20 18 3.04 34 26 3 293 279 99 64 199
1934 STL 30 7 2.66 33 24 7 311.2 288 92 75 195
1935 STL 28 12 3.04 36 29 3 325.1 324 110 77 190
1936 STL 24 13 3.17 34 28 2 315 310 111 53 195
1937 STL 13 10 2.69 25 17 4 197.1 206 59 33 120
1938 CHI 7 1 1.81 10 3 1 74.2 63 15 8 22
1939 CHI 6 4 3.36 13 7 2 96.1 98 36 17 27
1940 CHI 3 3 5.17 9 3 0 54 68 31 20 18
1941 CHI 0 0 18.0 1 0 0 1 3 2 0 1
1947 STL-B 0 0 0.00 1 0 0 4 3 0 1 0
TOTAL 150 83 3.02 230 154 26 1967.1 1925 661 453 1163

Awards and Accomplishments

1930 Won first major league start on September 28
1932 Led National League in strikeouts (191) and innings pitched (286)
1933 Struck out 17 batters in one game to set a new league record
1933 Led National League in strikeouts (199)
1934 Pitched to a record of 30-7; led National League in strikeouts (195), wins (30), and shutouts (7); named National League Most Valuable Player and Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year
1934 Won final game of the World Series with an 11-0 rout over Detroit on October 9
1934-37 Named to the All-Star team
1935 Led National League in strikeouts (190) and wins (28)
1953 Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame Dean ended his career with a record of 150 wins to 83 losses.

Dean retired from broadcasting in the late 1960s and settled with his wife, Patricia Nash, in Bond, Mississippi. The couple, who had no children, had wed in 1931, during Dean's minor league years. Dean died on July 17, 1974. During his funeral in Bond, Mississippi, the Rev. Bill Taylor summed up Dean's life this way, according to Vince Staten's book, Ol' Diz: "He has left us, but he has not left us empty. Few men will be remembered as he will be, a man of kindness and good will. He was an institution it would have been a tragedy to institutionalize.… His speech didn't always follow the rules, but he was better understood that our best grammarian."

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