Signed off the New Jersey sandlots, the muscular and quick-tempered Medwick quickly developed a reputation as one of the best bad-ball hitters in the league. The Dodgers’ Van Lingle Mungo said, “I’d rather pitch to any other hitter in the league,” while his teammate, Dutch Leonard, suggested, “Forbid Medwick to carry a bat to the plate – make him hit it with his fists. Then he’d only get singles.”[1]

After appearing in 26 games in 1932, Medwick was inserted into the starting lineup and hit .306 with 18 home runs and 98 RBIs in 1933. During the Gashouse Gang’s world championship season in 1934, Medwick batted .319 with 18 homers and 106 RBIs.

“I just smell the lettuce,” Medwick said, using a slang term for money. “I have two good friends in this world: buckerinoes and base hits. If I get base hits, I will get buckerinoes. I smell World Series lettuce, and I’ll get my two or three a day.”[2]

Facing the Reds at Crosley Field on June 29, 1935, Medwick got more than the two or three hits he’d bargained for. Batting cleanup, he opened the day’s scoring with an RBI double to left field that scored Ernie Orsatti. Catcher Bill DeLancey launched a solo home run over the right-field wall to make it 2-0 before Medwick struck again in the third. This time, Medwick tripled into center field, scoring Burgess Whitehead. Ripper Collins followed with a single up the middle to score Medwick and give the Cardinals a 4-0 lead.

Medwick led off the fifth inning with a single and scored when DeLancey tripled off the right-field wall.

Paul Dean allowed two runs in the bottom of the fifth, including a solo home run by Oval Goodman, to trim the Cardinals’ lead to 5-3. After Cincinnati’s Billy Myers led off the seventh with a triple, manager Frankie Frisch replaced Dean with Bill Walker. Walker allowed five hits in the inning, including a two-run double by Alex Kampouris, as “base hits then cracked to all parts of the field like exploding firecrackers,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.[3] With the rally, the Reds grabbed an 8-5 lead.

The Reds continued to hold that three-run lead into the ninth. After Al Hollinsworth retired Orsatti and Whitehead, Medwick came to the plate seeking to keep the Cardinals’ chances alive, needing a home run for the cycle. With a blast that bounced off the left-field foul pole and back onto the field, he accomplished both.

Collins followed with a single, and DeLancey drew a walk to bring the winning run to the plate, but Terry Moore hit a ground ball to third base, and the Reds’ Lew Riggs stepped on the bag to force out Collins and end the game.

Medwick’s performance raised his average to .370, trailing only the Pirates’ Arky Vaughan, who was batting .392 through 199 at-bats. Medwick finished the season batting .353 with 23 homers and 126 RBIs and placed fifth in that year’s MVP voting behind Gabby Hartnett, Dizzy Dean, Vaughan, and Billy Herman.

Throughout the 1930s, Medwick was a mainstay in the Cardinals’ lineup, leading the league in runs, hits, doubles, home runs, RBIs, batting average, and total bases en route to the National League MVP in 1937. In 1940, to avoid his rising salary demands, the Cardinals traded Medwick and Curt Davis to the Dodgers for Carl Doyle, Bert Haas, Ernie Koy, Sam Nahem, and $125,000.

Medwick returned to the Cardinals for the final two years of his career in 1947 and 1948 before retiring. His 17-year major league career included a .324 batting average and 10 All-Star Game appearances. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1968.

Give the gift of Cardinals history! The Trades That Made The St. Louis Cardinals is available now on Amazon.

[1] Doug Feldmann (2015), Dizzy and the Gas House Gang, McFarland Publishing, Kindle file, Page 42.

[2] Doug Feldmann (2015), Dizzy and the Gas House Gang, McFarland Publishing, Kindle file, Page 41.

[3] J. Roy Stockton, “Medwick Hits Home Run, Triple, Double, and Single,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 30, 1935.

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His big brother, Dizzy Dean, had taken it upon himself to serve as Paul’s spokesperson, telling anyone who would listen that his little brother was an even better pitcher than he was, and predicting that together the Dean brothers would win 45 games that season.[1]

The early results, however, weren’t promising. Making his debut in the Cardinals’ second game of the season against the powerful Pirates lineup, Paul lasted just two innings, as Pie Traynor and Gus Suhr each homered and Lloyd Waner added an RBI single to give Pittsburgh an early 4-0 lead.

Seeking to lessen the pressure on his rookie pitcher, manager Frankie Frisch used Paul in relief in each of his next two appearances. In a 15-2 loss to the Cubs, Paul pitched the fourth and fifth innings, allowing two runs. Six days later, he pitched two more innings and allowed two more runs in a 7-1 loss vs. Chicago.

On May 3, Paul earned his first major-league victory, throwing five innings of relief as the Cardinals beat the Phillies 8-7. He didn’t pitch particularly well, allowing five runs on seven hits and two walks. Nonetheless, Frisch selected the younger Dean for a May 11 start against the defending world champion New York Giants and their ace pitcher, Carl Hubbell.

The 31-year-old Hubbell had won the National League MVP Award the previous year. With his left-handed delivery and baffling screwball, he had won 23 games and posted a 1.66 ERA over 308 2/3 innings.

Why did Frisch have confidence in Paul against arguably the best pitcher in the game? In The Gashouse Gang, John Heidenry writes that the Cardinals’ manager believed Paul “was trying to imitate his brother instead of developing his own style. The younger Dean also lacked Dizzy’s enormous self-confidence, which no number of defeats, no criticism from colleagues, no taunting from opponents could erode.”[2]

To boost that confidence, Frisch invited Paul to his dining car as the team traveled by train between cities.

“We open with the Giants in about a week and you’re going to start the third game,” Frisch said. “Those Giants will be tough, but smart pitching can beat them. Let’s analyze their batting form.”[3]

Together, the Cardinals’ 36-year-old player/manager and the 21-year-old rookie pitcher spent the next two hours discussing the Giants lineup, with Frisch standing into the aisle to imitate the Giants’ batting stances. Through the entire conversation, Frisch never once mentioned Paul’s brother; instead, he emphasized his primary message: that Paul had the talent to beat the Giants.[4]

The Cardinals put that message to the test in front of 6,500 fans at Sportsman’s Park on May 11.

Paul worked himself out of trouble in the first inning. Jo-Jo Moore drew a leadoff walk before Paul struck out Lefty O’Doul and Bill Terry. Mel Ott hit a two-out single to advance Moore to third base, but Paul got Travis Jackson to fly out to center field for the final out.

The Cardinals gave Paul some early run support when Pepper Martin led off the bottom of the first with a double and Frisch tripled to drive him in. Ripper Collins singled to score Frisch, giving the Cardinals a 2-0 lead.

The Giants got on the scoreboard with three more hits in the second inning. Blondy Ryan led off with a single to center, then scored with a two-out double by Moore. From there, both pitchers settled down for the long haul.

Paul retired the side in order in the third and worked around a two-out walk to Paul Richards in the fourth. In the fifth, O’Doul singled and stole second, but Dean retired Ott on a fly ball to right field to end the inning.

One inning later, the Giants loaded the bases with one out before Hubbell drove Ryan home with a sacrifice fly to right field.

With the score tied 2-2, Paul worked out of trouble again in the seventh. O’Doul led off with a single and Terry reached on an error by Martin at third base. After Ott laid down a bunt to advance O’Doul to third, Travis Jackson hit a ground ball to third and Martin made up for his earlier misplay, throwing O’Doul out at the plate. Paul then retired Ryan on a ground ball force-out.

Paul retired all three batters he faced in the eighth, then worked around a leadoff single by Moore in the ninth. Hubbell matched Paul pitch for pitch, retiring Joe Medwick, Collins, and Spud Davis in order in the ninth to send the game to extra innings.

In the 10^th, Paul retired the side in order. In the Cardinals’ half of the inning, Leo Durocher hit a one-out double, then advanced to third when Ryan misplayed a pop fly off Paul’s bat. Hubbell chose to intentionally walk Martin to face right fielder Jack Rothrock, who was 0-for-4 on the day.

It proved a poor decision for the Giants. Rothrock singled to left, and Ernie Orsatti, in the game as a pinch runner for Durocher, scored the game-winning run. With the victory, the Cardinals continued a streak that included five consecutive wins and victories in 12 of their last 13 games.

Hubbell fell to 4-2 on the season after allowing three earned runs in 9 1/3 innings.

As Doug Feldmann wrote in Dizzy Dean and the Gas House Gang, “Paul Dean had proven that he was here to stay, and gained some more respect from the rest of the Cardinals for his performance.”[5]

Paul’s performance certainly caught the attention of New York Daily News sports reporter Jimmy Powers.

“When you hand either Paul or Jerome (Dizzy) a baseball and tell them they are to pitch a nine-inning contest they more or less mechanically turn in an excellent job,” Powers wrote after Paul and Dizzy each defeated the Giants during a three-game series later that month. “If you tell them they are to pitch against the New York Giants their eyes glow fanatically, they snatch the horsehide away from you and they stride out to the mound with nostrils breathing fire.

“Until the world champs appeared in St. Louis, the younger Dean was just another performer. Most of the western clubs had knocked him out of the box. Now, he is made. He has beaten us twice and so has his bigger brother. … If the Giants do not win the pennant this summer and the Cardinals do, you can credit the remarkable Deans.”[6]

Powers’ words proved prophetic. Trailing the Giants by as many as seven games on Sept. 6, the Cardinals made a furious rally in the season’s final weeks. On Sept. 28, Dizzy Dean shut out the Reds to move the Cardinals into a tie with the Giants. The following day, Paul Dean earned the win in a 6-1 victory to give St. Louis the lead, and in the season finale, Dizzy threw another shutout to clinch the pennant and secure his 30^th win of the season.

The Cardinals went on to defeat the Detroit Tigers in a seven-game World Series, and the legend of the Gas House Gang was born.

Give the gift of Cardinals history! The Trades That Made The St. Louis Cardinals is available now on Amazon.

[1] John Heidenry (2007), The Gashouse Gang, PublicAffairs, Kindle file, Page 68.

[2] John Heidenry (2007), The Gashouse Gang, PublicAffairs, Kindle file, Page 114.

[3] John Heidenry (2007), The Gashouse Gang, PublicAffairs, Kindle file, Page 114.

[4] John Heidenry (2007), The Gashouse Gang, PublicAffairs, Kindle file, Page 114.

[5] Doug Feldman (2015), Dizzy and the Gas House Gang, McFarland, Kindle file, Page 73.

[6] Jimmy Powers, “The Deans Are Mad!” New York Daily News, May 24, 1934.

The post Paul Dean turns his rookie season around: May 11, 1934 first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

You may sing the praises of Mickey Cochrane’s Tigers and the glory of the Giants from the housetops. Tell the story of Lynwood (Schoolboy) Rowe and the saga of Carl Hubbell, the wizardry of Grover Alexander and the blinding speed of Walter Johnson, but brother, if you were at Ebbetts Field yesterday, you’ve got something to tell your children.[1]

It wasn’t often in 1934 that someone managed to steal the show from Dizzy Dean, but on September 21, 1934, his brother managed the trick on a day that only served to bolster the legend of the incredible Dean brothers.

Both games were make-ups for games that were rained out earlier in the month. Before the double-header started, the Deans were speaking to a reporter in the visitor’s dugout when they were asked who would pitch the first game.

“I’m supposed to,” Dizzy said, “but I don’t feel so good. How about you taking it, Paul?”

“OK with me,” Paul responded. “Where’s the boss?”

Frankie Frisch, the Cardinals’ second baseman/manager, was just emerging onto the field and began to take infield drills. Before his pregame routine was complete, however, the Deans already had lost interest.

“Well, I guess there’s no help for it,” Dizzy said as he walked off to begin warming up.[2]

However well Dizzy was feeling, he went on to throw 7 1/3 no-hit innings in a 13-0 blowout. With one out in the eighth, Buzz Boyle beat out a slow roller to the shortstop. In the next inning, Sam Leslie and Joe Stripp each singled before Al Lopez reached on an error by Pepper Martin at third base. With the bases loaded, Dizzy ended the threat by striking out Nick Tremark for his 27^th win of the year.

“I didn’t know that I had a no-hitter,” Dizzy said. “I was way out in front and I was just coasting along. Boy, if I had known that I was so near to a no-hitter, I’d have given those Dodgers so much smoke and such fancy curves that they wouldn’t have even seen the ball.”[3]

Ripper Collins led the Cardinals’ offense with four hits and six RBIs, including a two-run single in the first inning, an RBI double in the third, a two-run home run in the fourth, and another RBI double in the sixth. Frankie Frisch and Spud Davis drove in two runs apiece, and Jack Rothrock added two hits and three runs scored.

With their win streak now up to five games, 21-year-old rookie Paul Dean and the Cardinals matched up against Ray Benge and the Dodgers. After Benge retired the Cardinals in order in the first, Paul issued a two-out walk to Len Koenecke before retiring Leslie on a fly ball.

“I’ve pitched better ball games in my career than the one today,” Paul said afterwards, “but everything went my way. It seemed that I was always ahead of the hitters, all but Koenecke, whom I walked in the first inning. I had him 3-and-2 and inasmuch as he tagged me for an extra-base hit last month in St. Louis, I wasn’t going to give him anything good.”[4]

Benge kept pace with Paul until the top of the sixth inning, when the younger Dean helped his own cause with a one-out double into center field. Pepper Martin followed with a double to left, and though he was thrown out at third by the center fielder Koenecke, Paul scored on the play to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.

One inning later, Joe Medwick doubled to left field and scored on an RBI single to right by Collins. In the seventh, Paul had his closest call of the game as Leslie lifted a fly ball to deep left field that required Medwick to make a running, one-handed catch.[5]

“When did I first think about (a no-hitter)?” Paul said. “Why, after I got the first three outs of the game in the first inning. I said to myself as I went back to the dugout, ‘Well, no hits so far,’ and after the second inning I said the same thing.

“Then after a couple more innings I started to talk to (rookie catcher Bill) DeLancey about it. We’re roommates and I think a lot of him and we told each other after each inning that there wasn’t no hits yet. After six innings I said to Dee that if we could bear down just a little bit longer, we’d have a no-hit game for the room. Dee thought it was a good idea and we both cut the pie at each other when Medwick goes out near the bleacher wall in that seventh inning and comes up with Leslie’s fly, which was well rickety-cacked.”[6]

Paul Dean struck out two of the three batters he faced in the eighth, and in the top of the ninth Collins drove in his eighth run of the day on a ground ball that scored Medwick.

Down 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth and still seeking the Dodgers’ first hit, Casey Stengel called on Jim Bucher to pinch hit for Lopez. The move didn’t work, however, as Paul recorded his sixth and final strikeout of the game.

After Paul got the final strike, coach Miguel Gonzales, who caught Jesse Haines when he threw the first no-hitter in Cardinals history 10 years earlier, yelled at Paul, “Two more and you’ll get Dizzy jealous!”[7]

“I was pouring that ball through there in the late innings,” Paul said. “How did you like them strikes I throwed to Bucher? … He ain’t never saw anything I thrun.”[8]

The next batter also was a pinch hitter, as Johnny McCarthy came in to bat for Benge. McCarthy popped out to Frisch at second base, leaving Boyle between Paul and history.

“I was thinking it would be kinda nice to have the no-hitter, but if Boyle had been man enough to sock one, I’d have taken it without any crying,” Paul said.[9]

The Cardinals rookie never had to find out, as Boyle hit a sharp ground ball to Leo Durocher at shortstop, who blocked the ball with his chest[10] and recovered to throw Boyle out for the final out of the game.

With the game won, fans mobbed the field to congratulate the younger Dean. Delancey raced out to the mound to hand him the historic ball, but it briefly was stolen by a fan. One of the officers on duty, Jimmy Curran, grabbed the fan and the ball and returned the memento.[11]

“My curve was breaking good and as the game went along I felt looser and better,” Paul said. “I got faster as I went along and the funniest thing to me was that I wasn’t a bit tired when it was all over. I didn’t feel like I’d done no work at all. The fellows on the bench and the other players in the game acted like they’d been under a great strain and they kept sighing and heaving that they was glad it was all over, but I didn’t feel none of that. I felt like I could have pitched a couple more games.”[12]

Paul’s no-hitter was the first in the majors since Cleveland’s Wes Ferrell and Washington’s Bob Burke accomplished the feat, and the first Cardinals no-hitter since Jesse Haines did it 10 years earlier. Despite the accomplishment, Paul said his biggest thrill of the game was his offensive performance.

“I guess those two hits I got will knock Dizz off for a while,” he said. “Did I hit those or didn’t I? I never hit so good in my life. That single to right was good, but that double that I larruped out there to left-center was what I got a big kick out of. Yes sir. I guess Dizz won’t talk about his hitting for a while after those two wallops.”[13]

Of course, that didn’t mean that Dizzy Dean didn’t have anything to say. The two wins not only kept the Cardinals within three games of the New York Giants for the National League lead, but it meant that the Deans already had combined for 45 of the Cardinals’ 88 wins, matching a preseason prediction from Dizzy.

“Even Dizzy wasn’t dizzy enough to predict that the 45^th would be a no-hitter,” Durocher said.[14]

In later years, legend would allege that Dizzy told his brother, “Shucks, Paul, you shoulda told me you was gonna pitch a no-hitter, then I woulda pitched one too!” While the quote appears in Milton Shapiro’s The Dizzy Dean Story, published almost 30 years later in 1963, none of the papers covering the game appear to have recorded the anecdote.

What was indisputable, however, was that the Cardinals would end up winning 13 of their final 15 games to catch the Giants and win the National League by two games. Facing the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, Dizzy and Paul would each win a pair of games, including Dizzy’s Game 7 shutout to win the third world championship in St. Louis Cardinals history.

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[1] Bill McCullough, “Dean Brothers Wrote Mound History With Double Win Over Dodgers,” Brooklyn Times-Union, September 22, 1934: Page 1A.

[2] Tommy Holmes, “Dean Brothers Bubbling Over With Fame,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 22, 1934: Page 6.

[3] J. Roy Stockton, “Paul Dean First St. Louis No-Hit Pitcher Since 1924,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1934: Page 1B.

[4] Bill McCullough, “Dean Brothers Wrote Mound History With Double Win Over Dodgers,” Brooklyn Times-Union, September 22, 1934: Page 1A.

[5] Tommy Holmes, “Dean Brothers Bubbling Over With Fame,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 22, 1934: Page 6.

[6] J. Roy Stockton, “Paul Dean First St. Louis No-Hit Pitcher Since 1924,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1934: Page 1B.

[7] Bill McCullough, “Dean Brothers Wrote Mound History With Double Win Over Dodgers,” Brooklyn Times-Union, September 22, 1934: Page 2A.

[8] J. Roy Stockton, “Paul Dean First St. Louis No-Hit Pitcher Since 1924,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1934: Page 1B.

[9] J. Roy Stockton, “Paul Dean First St. Louis No-Hit Pitcher Since 1924,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1934: Page 1B.

[10] Bill McCullough, “Dean Brothers Wrote Mound History With Double Win Over Dodgers,” Brooklyn Times-Union, September 22, 1934: Page 1A.

[11] Bill McCullough, “Dean Brothers Wrote Mound History With Double Win Over Dodgers,” Brooklyn Times-Union, September 22, 1934: Page 1A.

[12] J. Roy Stockton, “Paul Dean First St. Louis No-Hit Pitcher Since 1924,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1934: Page 1B.

[13] J. Roy Stockton, “Paul Dean First St. Louis No-Hit Pitcher Since 1924,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1934: Page 1B.

[14] Tommy Holmes, “Dean Brothers Bubbling Over With Fame,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 22, 1934: Page 6.

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