Ticked off with his Cardinals teammates and the plate umpire, Dizzy Dean threw a tantrum instead of his fastball.
On June 4, 1935, at Pittsburgh, the St. Louis ace experienced an unlucky inning against the Pirates. Dean blamed the umpire and the Cardinals fielders. An argument ensued in the dugout and it nearly led to a fight.
When he returned to the mound, a petulant Dean lobbed soft tosses to Pirates batters, inviting them to bash the ball.
The antics reflected poorly on him. A year earlier, Dean was the pride of St. Louis. A 30-game winner during the 1934 season, he won two more, including Game 7, in the World Series. His sulk in Pittsburgh, though, sullied his stature.
Bad breaks
In the Tuesday game against the Pirates, Dean was in command early. With the Cardinals ahead, 2-0, he retired the first two batters in the third. Then Lloyd Waner walked. On a hit-and-run, Waner took off for second and Woody Jensen sliced a grounder to the left side. Because Leo Durocher correctly went to cover second when he saw Waner break from first, Jensen’s grounder rolled through the vacated shortstop spot and into left for a single, the Pirates’ first hit of the game.
It was a tough break for Dean. He walked the next batter, Paul Waner, loading the bases. Up came the cleanup hitter, Arky Vaughan. Dean got two strikes on him, then threw a pitch that cut the corner of the plate and froze Vaughan. Dean thought it was strike three, ending the inning. Plate umpire Cy Rigler ruled it a ball. Dean ranted and stormed around the mound.
On the next pitch, Vaughan bounced a grounder to Burgess Whitehead, filling in for hobbled player-manager Frankie Frisch at second base. It should have been a routine out, allowing Dean to escape the inning unscathed, but Whitehead fumbled the ball for an error, Lloyd Waner scored from third and the bases remained loaded.
Dizzy was seething, but it got worse. Pep Young followed with a short fly that fell just out of the reach of right fielder Jack Rothrock for a double. All three runners scored, giving the Pirates a 4-2 lead.
After retiring Gus Suhr on a pop-up to end the inning, Dean confronted Frisch in the dugout and demanded to know why the manager didn’t come onto the field to support him in his beef with Rigler. According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Frisch replied, “I can’t umpire the game for you. Let’s bear down and win this.”
Boiling point
Dean pitched a scoreless fourth, but when the Cardinals went to bat in the fifth, he resumed barking at Rigler from the dugout. Teammate Joe Medwick said to him, “Lay off Rigler and bear down in there,” the Globe-Democrat reported.
According to biographer Robert Gregory in the book “Diz,” Dean began berating the entire team as a “bunch of lousy, no-good ballplayers.” First baseman Rip Collins roared at Dean, “Shut up,” then told the pitcher the team was fed up with his “crazy shit” and if he didn’t close his “fucking mouth” somebody was going to do it for him. Dean said, “You do it, if you’re man enough and not yellow.”
According to the “Diz” book, Collins was about to swing at Dean when Frisch stepped between them. A few feet away, Medwick warned the pitcher not to say another thing. Dean said, “Fuck you.”
Medwick then picked up a bat and started toward Dean. Pitcher Paul Dean rushed to his brother’s side. Medwick intended to separate them, saying one swing of the bat to the head would get both, according to biographer Robert Gregory.
Pepper Martin and other Cardinals got in between Medwick and the Deans, preventing any violence. Frisch ordered Dizzy to the other end of the dugout.
Soft tosses
While the drama unfolded in view of spectators seated on the first-base side of the field, the Cardinals scored in the fifth, getting within a run at 4-3.
Frisch kept Dean in the game, but Dizzy’s mood hadn’t improved. Looking to spite his teammates, he began to lob pitches to the Pirates in their half of the fifth. “You or I or Lefty the bat boy could have hit what he was throwing,” J. Roy Stockton reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
As the Globe-Democrat noted, “It looked as if Dizzy’s offerings were coming up as fat as well-fed geese.”
The Pirates pounded him for four runs in the fifth, gratefully taking an 8-3 lead. According to the Post-Dispatch, Cardinals catcher Bill DeLancey “ran out half a dozen times and pleaded with Dizzy to bear down. Durocher halted the game to do the same thing. Rip Collins added his voice (but) Dizzy was disgusted and he would not pitch Dean baseball.”
After Woody Jensen whacked a soft toss for a home run in the sixth, Durocher threw up his hands in disgust. Asked later about the shortstop’s reaction, “Dizzy said he did not care what Durocher did” and implied Durocher was so clueless he “did not know what town he was playing in,” the Globe-Democrat reported.
Frisch and other Cardinals accused Dean of “laying down” on them. Pirates players also said Dean eased up and quit, according to the Globe-Democrat.
Dean was lifted for a pinch-hitter in the seventh. The Pirates won, 9-5. The loss dropped Dean’s record to 6-5, giving him almost as many defeats as he had during his entire 1934 season (30-7). Boxscore
Bruised feelings
In the clubhouse, Frisch called a meeting and warned Dean that a repetition of his behavior would result in a suspension and $5,000 fine. “No one man is bigger than this game,” Frisch told the Globe-Democrat.
Cardinals owner Sam Breadon said to the St. Louis Star-Times, “I’ll stand behind Frisch 100 percent.”
Dean’s reactions swayed from apologetic to defiant.
“I’m sorry … I just flew off my head,” he said to the Post-Dispatch. He also told the newspaper, “I haven’t done nothing to apologize for. The Cardinals ought to apologize to me. I put money in their pockets winning the pennant and World Series. What do I get for it all? Nothing but a lot of abuse.”
To the Globe-Democrat, Dean said, “The best thing the Cardinals can do is to trade me. I’m not going to stand for this kind of stuff … As for Medwick, I’ll crack him on his Hungarian nose.”
Regarding Frisch’s threat of a $5,000 fine, Dean told the newspaper, “It wasn’t $5,000. It was $10,000. Yeah, ten grand. You know what I think? They’re trying to take away a big chunk of the money my contract calls for.”
(In 1935, Dean got an $18,500 salary, plus a $2,500 signing bonus.)
Most viewed Dean as the villain in the incident. A headline in The Pittsburgh Press declared, “Dizzy Likes To Dish it Out But Can’t Take It.” A Cardinals fan, James MacNaughton Jr. of University City, Mo., sent Dean a telegram: “Take off the high hat, put on your ball cap and win games.”
Two days after Dean’s stunt, Frisch used him in relief of Jesse Haines at Pittsburgh. Dean pitched two scoreless innings and “at times looked as fast as the golf greens at Oakmont” where the U.S. Open was being played near Pittsburgh, the Globe-Democrat reported. Boxscore
(Dean found time during the Pirates series to attend a round of the 1935 U.S. Open. He was seen in the gallery following “The Silver Scot,” Tommy Armour, and South African Sid Brews, according to columnist Paul Gallico.)
When the Cardinals returned by train to St. Louis, Dean was greeted at the station by his wife, Patricia, who told columnist Sid Keener, “I can handle Dizzy. I’m going to take him home and talk to him.”
Forgive and forget
Dean’s first appearance in St. Louis since the Pittsburgh episode came in a start against the Cubs on Sunday, June 9, 1935.
As Dean came off the mound after retiring the Cubs in the first, four lemons were thrown at him from the stands. When he went to bat in the second, another 10 lemons were hurled at Dean and he was booed by some of the 14,500 spectators. Dean pushed one of the lemons out the the batter’s box with the end of his bat, then ripped a single, driving in a run.
“Not a boo or jeer was heard after the second inning,” the Post-Dispatch noted.
Dean doubled to the wall in left in the fourth and, when he doubled again in the seventh, driving in another run, he received a “deafening round of applause,” the Star-Times reported.
His pitching (a six-hitter) was as good as his hitting (two doubles, a single, three RBI, two runs scored). The Cardinals won, 13-2, and, as the Globe-Democrat noted, “in the end, it seemed as if every one was cheering” Dean. Boxscore
“I poured ’em all I had,” Dean told the Post-Dispatch.
Asked about the lemons thrown, Dean said it was the work of Cubs fans. “No true St. Louis fan would do such a thing to Dizzy Dean,” he told the Star-Times.
Dean predicted that if he continued to perform well, “St. Louis fans will be throwing roses at me.”
Dizzy went on to post a 28-12 record for the 1935 Cardinals. Though they had a better mark in 1935 (96-58) than they did in their championship season the year before (95-58), the Cardinals placed second to the Cubs (100-54).