1926

1934 World Champions

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95-58		101-53

The Story | Season Highlights | W.S. Opponent | Game Summaries | Series Box Score | Series MVP | World Series Program

The Story of the 1934 Championship Season

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1934 Regular Season Highlights

Regular Season Pitching Performances

Team Accomplishments

Individual Accomplishments

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World Series Opponent

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Game Summaries

October 3 at Detroit (attendance: 42,505)

Cardinals Starter: Dizzy Dean (RHP), 30-7

Tigers Starter: General Crowder (RHP), 9-11

 

STL	0	2	1	0	1	4	0	0	0		8	13	2
DET	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	0		3	8	5

Homeruns: Medwick - St. Louis; Greenberg - Detroit

WP: J. Dean (1-0)

LP: Crowder (0-1)

Cardinals lead Series 1-0

Highlights:

Given a 3-0 lead, thanks to five Tiger errors in the first three innings, he breezed to an 8-3 win.  Medwick added four hits.

October 4 at Detroit (attendance: 43,451)

Cardinals Starter: Bill Hallahan (RHP), 8-12

Tigers Starter: Schoolboy Rowe (RHP), 24-8

 

STL	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		2	7	3
DET	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1		3	7	0

Homeruns: none

WP: Rowe (1-0)

LP:  W. Walker (0-1)

Series tied 1-1

Highlights:

Detroit's Schoolboy Rowe brought the Tigers back with a pitching masterpiece in Game Two. After giving up single runs in the second and third innings, he allowed only one runner to reach base over the next nine as his Tigers tied the score in the ninth, and won it on two walks and a single in the twelfth.

October 5 at Saint Louis (attendance: 34,073)

Tigers Starter:  Tommy Bridges (RHP), 19-9

Cardinals Starter: Paul Dean (RHP), 19-11

 

DET	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1		1	8	2
STL	1	1	0	0	2	0	0	0	X		4	9	1

Homeruns: none

WP: P. Dean (1-0)

LP: Bridges (0-1)

Cardinals leads Series 2-1

Highlights:

Paul Dean nearly pitched a shutout, yielding a harmless run with two outs in the ninth after the Cards had built him a 4-0 lead.

October 6 at Saint Louis (attendance: 37,492)

Tigers Starter: Eldon Auker (RHP), 15-7

Cardinals Starter: Tex Carleton (RHP), 16-11

 

DET	0	0	3	1	0	0	1	5	0		10	13	1
STL	0	1	1	2	0	0	0	0	0		4	10	5

Homeruns: none

WP: Auker (1-0)

LP: W. Walker (0-2)

Series tied 2-2

Highlights:

Dizzy figured in a curious and painful play in Game Four. Pinch-running in the fourth inning (without Frisch's blessing), he was beaned by a would-be double-play throw as he ran to second. The tying run scored from third on the play, but Detroit's pitcher Eldon Auker shut out the Cards through the final five innings, and his teammates scored six more runs to bury St. Louis 10-4, evening the Series at two apiece. Diz was rushed to the hospital, but as no damage was found he started Game Five the next day.

October 7 at Saint Louis (attendance: 38,536)

Tigers Starter: Tommy Bridges (RHP), 19-9

Cardinals Starter: Dizzy Dean (RHP), 30-7

 

DET	0	1	0	0	0	2	0	0	0		3	7	0
STL	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0		1	7	1

Homeruns: Gehringer - Detroit; DeLancey - St. Louis

WP: Bridges (1-1)

LP: Dean (1-1)

Tigers lead the Series 3-2

Highlights:

Dizzy pitched well enough to win, but Detroit's Tommy Bridges pitched better, giving the Cardinals only one run to the Tigers' three.

October 8 at Detroit (attendance: 44,551)

Cardinals Starter: Paul Dean (RHP), 19-11

Tigers Starter: Schoolboy Rowe (RHP), 24-8

 

STL	1	0	0	0	2	0	1	0	0		4	10	2
DET	0	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	0		3	7	1

Homeruns: none

WP: P. Dean (2-0)

LP: Rowe (1-1)

Series tied 3-3

Highlights:

Paul Dean evened the Series again with a win against Rowe in a closely contested sixth game.  A grounder through Dean's legs allowed the Tigers to tie the game in the sixth inning, but Paul redeemed his error in the seventh when he singled in the tie-breaking - and as it turned out, winning - run (what's this? a pitcher hitting in an A.L. ballpark?).  The normally light-hitting Leo Durocher added 3 hits for the Redbirds

October 9 at Detroit (attendance: 40,902)

Cardinals Starter: Dizzy Dean (RHP), 30-7

Detroit Starter: Eldon Auker (RHP), 15-7

 

STL	0	0	7	0	0	2	2	0	0		11	17	1
DET	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	6	3

Homeruns: none

WP: J. Dean (2-1)

LP: Auker (1-1)

Cardinals win the World Series 4-3

Highlights:

In the Game 7 laugher, does it really surprise you that, given the character of The Gashouse Gang, the Series ended with a resounding rumpus?  In the top of the 3rd, the Cards erupted for seven runs, casting a pall over the 40,000+ Tiger fans who had been hoping for Detroit's first world championship.

In the top of the sixth, Medwick tripled in another run, and when Joe slid into third the Tigers' Marv Owen thought it was with too much enthusiasm and he and Medwick squared off.  The combatants were quickly separated, but when Joe went out to take his left-field position in the bottom of the inning he found himself the target of the frustrated bleacher fans, who seemed to have been waiting to erupt.  They took dead aim at Joe with fruit, vegetables, soda pop bottles, and any other missile that would fly.  As soon as stadium personnel cleaned up one mess, another came flying out.

"I don't know where they were getting all that stuff from," Charlie Gehringer said.  "It was like they were backing produce trucks up to the gate and supplying everybody."

With the game unable to continue, Commissioner Landis summoned Medwick, Frisch, and the umpires to his box.  There a decision was made to remove Joe from the game "to protect the player from injury and permit the game to continue."  This action deprived the Cardinals of their top hitter, but with the score already 9-0 and Dizzy in top form, it made little difference.

Dizzy's prediction that "Me 'n Paul" would win two games apiece had been right on the money.  It was a foregone conclusion that Dizzy would win the World Series MVP Award, and he did, making him the second Cardinal in four years to be so honored.

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Series Composite Box Score

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Series MVP

Hillbilly Dizzy Dean was a man of many accomplishments and even more words, some of which actually were standard English. The National League's last 30-game winner and a card-carrying member of St. Louis's "Gas House Gang," Dean often made good on his outrageous boasts. As he put it, "It ain't bragging if you can do it." To some reporters he gave his actual name as Jay Hanna Dean; to others, Jerome Herman Dean. He also provided them with a "dizzying" choice of birthplaces and birthdays. When confronted with the inconsistencies, he explained, "I was helpin' these writers out. Them ain't lies; them's scoops."

Dean grew up poor, the son of a sharecropper. "The boys used to pick cotton for me at Purcell, Oklahoma," Dizzy's father recalled in 1934. "Jay used to scheme about how to make money from his great right arm and used to think a lot." According to the elder Dean, Dizzy's brother "Paul would pick as much as 500 pounds a day, but Jay never went over 400 pounds a day. And I was only able to pick about 200 pounds cuz I had to watch Jay."

On the local high school team, the 14-year-old Dizzy pitched in his bare feet. He never actually attended high school, however, having dropped out in the fourth grade. Dizzy enlisted in the Army at age 16 for $21 a month. He pitched well for an Army-camp team and practiced his control by hurling spuds during KP duty, but he soon tired of military life. Brother Paul bought Dizzy's way out of the service for $120, approximately one-fourth of his annual wages from picking cotton.

On May 29, 1929, Dizzy Dean was signed by Cardinals scout Don Curtis. He was offered no bonus. In 1930 Dean was assigned to last-place St. Joseph of the Class A Western League and compiled a 17-8 record. Promoted in midseason to Houston of the Texas League, Dean went 8-2 and earned a late season call-up to St. Louis. On the last day of the 1930 season he three-hit Pittsburgh in his major league debut.

Dean probably could have remained in the majors if the Cardinals hadn't had a strong pitching staff. But Dean was sent back to Houston. Once there he got on the phone to a rival Texas League manager, "Say this is Dizzy Dean. Yep, back in town and I can hear you gnashing your teeth, brother. Just thought I would call and tell you that I am gonna pitch against your ball club this afternoon and hold them to two or three hits."

He did indeed surrender just two hits. Dean led the Texas League with 26 victories, 303 strikeouts, and a 1.57 ERA in 1931. He returned to the Cardinals in 1932 and paced the National League in innings pitched, strikeouts, and shutouts.

In 1933 Dean won 20 games and again led the NL in strikeouts. In the first game of a July 30, 1933, doubleheader, Dean struck out 17 Chicago Cubs to set a now-broken modern major league record. That same year Paul Dean, soon to be christened "Daffy," was pitching in the Cardinal system at Columbus and leading the American Association with 197 strikeouts to post a 22-7 record.

In January 1934 Dizzy boldly predicted a NL championship for St. Louis. "How are they going to stop us?" Dean boasted. "Paul's going to be a sensation. He'll win 18 or 20 games. I'll count 20 to 25 for myself. I won 20 last season, and I know I'll pass that figure."

Pass it he did. In 1934 the Cardinals won the pennant and rookie Paul Dean contributed 18 wins. Dizzy went 30-7. But both pitchers could have won more. They each had missed two starts after being suspended for skipping an exhibition game in a salary dispute. Dizzy claimed that he, at $6,500 per year, and Paul, at $3,000, were underpaid. Hearing the news of his suspension, Dizzy literally tore up his uniform.

On September 21, 1934, the Dean brothers took the mound at Ebbets Field for a doubleheader against the Dodgers. In the first game Dizzy carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning and beat Brooklyn, 13-0, settling for a three-hitter. In the nightcap Paul pitched a no-hitter, allowing only a first-inning walk. "If I'd a known what Paul was gonna do, I would have pitched one, too," Dizzy said.

The brothers were so overpowering that the Dodgers could only gawk in admiration. "If there is such as thing as getting a kick out of losing, I got it today," Brooklyn catcher Al Lopez said. "I think we were all up there with our mouths open in admiration of the stuff those two were throwing."

The Deans were even better in the postseason. As the Cardinals prepared for the World Series against the Detroit Tigers, Dizzy predicted, "Me and Paul'll win two games apiece."

That's exactly what happened. Dizzy won Games 1 and 7, pitching a six-hit shutout on one day's rest in the clincher. Paul won Game 3, singled in the tie-breaking run in Game 6, and went on to win that game, too.

During that World Series Dizzy also proved he could generate headlines simply by running the bases. Pinch-running for Virgil "Spud" Davis in Game 4, Dean went barreling into second base. As Billy Rogell relayed the ball to first, Dean forgot to duck. The ball caromed off his forehead and landed more than 100 feet away in right field.

"The blow that floored Dizzy would have knocked down two elephants," wrote beloved sportswriter and poet Grantland Rice. "The wonder is that the entire top of his head was not shot away at such close range." Dean was carried off the field and taken to a hospital. Later he proudly announced, "The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing."

After his dazzling 1934 season Dean, of course, wanted more money. Brother Paul said, "I think all the other players on this club ought to volunteer to take a cut so's Diz can get the salary he wants."

Dizzy Dean's career began to unravel in July 1937. After being chosen to play in the All-Star Game, Dean didn't want to attend; he wanted to go fishing over the extended baseball holiday. His wife, however, insisted that he participate, arguing that he owed it to the game. Dean played, but in the third inning Earl Averill lined the ball off Dean's left little toe, fracturing it. "Fractured, hell! The damned thing's broken!" Dean said.

Two weeks after the incident Dean was pitching in Boston, he said, with "splints on my foot, and a shoe two sizes too big for me." To compensate, Dean placed all his weight on one foot. "Pain is stabbin' up through my hip," he said in describing the scene later. "Because of this, I change my natural style and don't follow through with my body on the delivery, so's I don't have to tromp down on my hurt foot·. As the ball left my hand, there was a loud crack in my shoulder, and my arm went numb down to my fingers." Despite the injury, a week and a half later Dean pitched 18 innings in an 8-6 victory over Cincinnati. It was his 13th and last win of the year and his last victory as a Cardinal.

During the off-season Branch Rickey traded Dean to the Cubs for three journeyman players and $185,000. "Jeez, $185,000·. If I'd a had a good arm wonder what I'd a brought," Dean joked.

Dean lasted with the Cubs as both a player and a coach until June 1941, when he started broadcasting Cardinals and Browns games for Falstaff beer. Dean's disregard for correct grammar caught the attention of the St. Louis Board of Education, which demanded that he be taken off the air. Dean stood his ground. "Let the teachers teach English, and I will teach baseball." As for his use of "ain't," he said, "There is a lot of people in the United States who say isn't, and they ain't eatin'." When another critic asked if he knew the King's English, he answered, "Yes sir, I do, and I know the Queen's English too." Aside from avoiding such nuisances as correct grammar and pronunciation, Dean also disdained statistical analysis, or "statics" as he put it. "I hate statics. What I know I keep in my haid," he explained. Despite being a fan of fellow hurler Satchel Paige, announcer Dean was not a true supporter of multicultural baseball. When the Cincinnati Reds loaded the bases with Ted Kluszewski on first, Bob Borkowski on second, and Fred Baczewski on third, Dean told listeners, "I was hopin' no one'd get a hit so I didn't have to pronounce them names."

When the next Cincinnati batter sent a drive in the direction of left-center, Dean announced, "There's a long drive, and here's Gene Kirby to tell you all about it." Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1953, Dean informed his Cooperstown audience, "The good Lord was good to me. He gave me a strong body, a good right arm, and a weak mind."

Dean passed away in 1974 in Reno, Nevada.

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