Dizzy Dean - Bond, MS - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

"The dumber a pitcher is, the better. When he gets smart and begins to experiment with a lot of different pitches, he's in trouble. All I ever had was a fastball, a curve and a changeup and I did pretty good."
- Dizzy Dean

Well, as that quote intimates, you can take the man out of Lucas, Arkansas, but you can’t take the Lucas, Arkansas out of the man. Young Jay Hanna Dean (Dizzy’s real name) didn’t attend much school past the second grade after his mother died. When Dizzy was a teenager, his family moved from Arkansas to Oklahoma where he lied about his age in order to join the army. Since picking cotton was not a skill valued by the army, Dean’s main contribution to his base was pitching for their baseball team. So dominant was Dizzy Dean’s pitching that he got noticed by big league scouts and by the time he was twenty, he was pitching professionally.

The big-talking Dizzy Dean was quite the prankster and jokester. He often provided conflicting information about his age, place of birth and even his name (and nickname). The Cardinals, who had signed him to a Major League contract, kept him in the Minor Leagues for a year, not so much to hone his pitching skills but to control his ego.

Nevertheless, the colorful Dean fit in well with the St. Louis Cardinals of the early 1930s who were called the ‘Gashouse Gang’ and who were also known for their on and off the field antics.
Dizzy Dean’s best year was 1934 when he had a record of 30-7 with an ERA of 2.66 and 195 strikeouts (not to mention batting .246 with two home runs and 9 RBIs). No National League pitcher has hit the 30-win mark since then. The Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers in the World Series that year with Dizzy Dean winning two of the games. (His brother Paul, who Dizzy had convinced the Cardinals to sign, won the other two.) Dean was the National League’s Most Valuable Player that year.

Dean’s professional career was cut short when he was hit by a line drive that broke his toe. Though playing a few more years with the Chicago Cubs, Dizzy Dean was never able to attain his former dominance. After retiring from baseball, Dean became one of the first former players to enter the broadcast booth as an announcer. His colorful anecdotes coupled with his knowledge of the game, and his butchered syntax made him a fan favorite but a bane to English teachers. In response, Dean is quoted as saying “I ain’t never met anybody that didn’t know what ain’t means.”
(Sources: encyclopediaofarkansas.net; baseball-reference.com)

Description: Dizzy Dean died of a heart attack in 1974 and is buried in the small town of Bond, Mississippi, his wife’s hometown. Date of birth: 01/16/1910 Date of death: 07/17/1974 Area of notoriety: Sports Marker Type: Headstone Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: none Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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