It was, perhaps, surprising that Dean had to win over the fans at all after his incredible 1934 season. In that historic campaign, Dean led the league with 30 wins against just seven losses, leading the Cardinals to the 1934 National League pennant and a World Series championship against the Detroit Tigers. His seven shutouts and 195 strikeouts each led the league, and he ended the regular season with a 2.66 ERA in 311 2/3 innings.

In the seven-game World Series, Dean pitched 26 innings, allowing just five earned runs for a 1.73 ERA. He pitched all nine innings of the Cardinals’ 8-3 Game 1 win, then took a tough-luck loss in Game 5 after allowing two earned runs over eight innings. With just one day of rest, Dean pitched the decisive Game 7, holding the Tigers to just six hits in a complete-game shutout.

Following Dean’s historic season, he was named National League MVP ahead of Pittsburgh’s Paul Waner, who placed second, and the Giants’ Jo-Jo Moore, Travis Jackson, and Mel Ott, who finished third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.

The Sporting News chose to honor Dean with a trophy presentation as part of one of the biggest days on the St. Louis baseball calendar. The Cardinals’ annual Tuberculosis Day carnival raised funds for the Tuberculosis and Health Society, which supported a variety of causes in the city. The fundraiser was so important to the city that union leadership, which was boycotting Sportsman’s Park over the employment of union bartenders and ushers, called a one-day halt to support the event. As the St. Louis Globe-Democrat explained, “The Central Trades and Labor Union, in raising the boycott, was influenced by the fact the Tuberculosis Society spends a great deal of its income to feed underprivileged children, some of whom come from union homes.”[1]

Tuberculosis and Health Society officials declared that the event would be “the largest and most spectacular in the history of the tuberculosis games,” including:

• a performance by 8-year-old trapeze artist Adele Inge;
• an exhibition by the Southwest Gymnastic Society;
• a niblick contest featuring golf stars Johnny and Jimmy Manion, Bob Cochran, Ben Richter, Lou Fehlig, George Dawson, Tom Draper, and Francis Schwartz;
• a race between 100- and 220-yard world record holder Helen Stephens, University City’s Harriet la Mertha, and U.S. Olympian Gertrude Webb;
• a model airplane contest;
• an exhibition by the Shriners Drum and Bugle Corps and Patrol;
• and a band concert.[2]

The extravaganza featured 3,000 total performers and attracted 16,000 fans to the stadium. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, “Women outnumbered the men in attendance by more than three to one, their bright dresses making a coat of many colors for the stands, and their voices during the closely contested ball game, adding a predominating, vibrant note.”[3]

Despite the positive spirit of the festivities and his accomplishments of the past year, Dean had attracted some controversy in recent days. One day earlier, on July 15, he had been slated to appear at an exhibition game in Springfield, Illinois. However, Dean’s scheduled start for the previous day was pushed back. As a result, he pitched all nine innings in the Cardinals’ 13-6 victory over the Braves. After showering, driving 2 ½ hours to Springfield, and stopping at a restaurant, Dean arrived late.

In his Post-Dispatch column, Dean explained:

They tell me in the spring that I am doin’ too many things and should ought to rest more and be sure to eat good nourishin’ food and not miss my meals on account of outside engagements. I try to remember all these things so when I hurry from pitchin’ a ballgame and goes to Springfield and ain’t had my dinner I figure I owe something to the ball club to be sure and eat nourishin’ food, so I goes to a restaurant and orders a steak. And what happens? Why, I get the blast because it seems a Governor and some other people was waitin’. But the Governor can’t pitch for us none and old Diz has got to stay in shape.[4]

Dean was scheduled to receive the MVP trophy from St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann, but in a late change, Dickmann was replaced by Sporting News editor E.G. Brands. With the Braves and Cardinals gathered at home plate, Dean accepted the award and, after a fan loudly shouted, “Say something, you big weed jumper!” made a few brief remarks.[5]

“I want to thank the Sporting News for this trophy and I want to thank each and every St. Louis fan for the loyal support you have given me and I hope I will spend many more years here with the fans of St. Louis,” Dean said.^[6]

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported, “Dizzy’s speech won his public back, and they cheered loudly as he left the field.”[7]

In the game that followed, it was another Cardinals pitcher, Jesse Haines, who stole the show, allowing one run on eight hits in a complete-game victory. After the Braves’ Buck Jordan hit a first-inning home run, Bill DeLancey hit an RBI single and Terry Moore drove a run home on a fielder’s choice in the fourth. St. Louis won the game, 2-1.

A few days later, the Baseball Writers Association of America presented Dean with its National League MVP Award before a July 21 doubleheader against Brooklyn.[8]

Enjoy this post? Get Cardinals history delivered straight to your inbox!

[1] “T.B. Charity Carnival to Be Staged Today at Sportsmans Park,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 16, 1935.

[2] “T.B. Charity Carnival to Be Staged Today at Sportsmans Park,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 16, 1935.

[3] “16,000 At Ball Game On Tuberculosis Day,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 17, 1935.

[4] Dizzy Dean, “Poppin’ Off,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 17, 1935.

[5] “16,000 Witness Colorful Events at T.B. Carnival,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 17, 1935.

[6] “Charity Day Race At Ball Park Won By Miss Stephens,” St. Louis Star and Times, July 16, 1935.

[7] “16,000 Witness Colorful Events at T.B. Carnival,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 17, 1935.

[8] “Writers Will Award Dean Trophy Sunday,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 17, 1935.

The post July 16, 1935: Dizzy Dean wins over the crowd as he accepts the NL MVP trophy first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

Mize’s feat marked the sixth time in franchise history that a Cardinals player hit for the cycle, joining Cliff Heathcote, Jim Bottomley, Chick Hafey, Pepper Martin, and Joe Medwick. It marked the Cardinals’ first cycle since Medwick did it five years earlier in 1935.

The game pitted two of the game’s best pitchers of the previous decade in New York’s Carl Hubbell and St. Louis’s Lon Warneke. Hubbell was a two-time National League MVP who had just been selected to his seventh career All-Star Game. Now in his 13^th season, the 37-year-old Hubbell entered the game with a 5-4 record and a 3.38 ERA.

The Cardinals countered with Warneke, a 31-year-old right-hander who finished second in the National League MVP voting in 1932, when he led the league with 22 wins and a 2.37 ERA. Warneke, who had four All-Star Game selections to his credit, was coming off a 10-inning performance in which he took the loss despite allowing just two earned runs. He entered the game with a 5-7 record despite a 2.83 ERA.

Neither pitcher enjoyed an easy afternoon on the mound. The Giants got on the scoreboard in the top of the second inning with an RBI single by Billy Jurges, but the Cardinals answered with back-to-back doubles by Marty Marion and Mickey Owen. Warneke helped his own cause with a single that scored Owen. In the third inning, Mize got his first hit of the day, a solo home run over the right-field wall, giving the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.

The Giants took the lead in the top of the fourth, chasing Warneke from the game with five consecutive hits to open the inning. After Jurges singled to give the Giants the lead, Cardinals manager Billy Southworth replaced Warneke with Jack Russell, a 15-year veteran from Paris, Texas. Russell got Hubbell to hit into a 6-4-3 double play that brought home another run, giving the Giants a 5-3 lead, before ending the inning.

The Giants added another run in the sixth after Russell walked Mel Ott and Tony Cuccinello. Jurges followed with a sacrifice bunt, and Ott scored on a groundout by Hubbell to make the score 6-3.

In the seventh, the Cardinals rallied to tie the score against a tiring Hubbell. Don Gutteridge, pinch-hitting for Russell, reached on an infield single. Hubbell walked Jimmy Brown before Martin hit a run-scoring single. Mize, who doubled to right field in the fifth, followed with an RBI single of his own to chase Hubbell from the game. Giants reliever Jumbo Brown walked Ernie Koy to load the bases before Joe Orengo hit a sacrifice fly to center field to tie the game 6-6.

The Cardinals’ Max Lanier and the Giants’ Red Lynn each retired the side in order in the eighth, and Lanier induced a 6-4-3 double play to end the top of the ninth. After Martin struck out to lead off the bottom of the ninth, Mize stepped to the plate a triple shy of the cycle. Incredibly, he got it when he smacked a drive off the concrete center-field wall 412 feet from home plate. Giants left fielder Jo-Jo Moore retrieved the ball and fired it back to the infield, but Jurges briefly mishandled the ball before relaying it to the catcher, Harry “The Horse” Danning.

Coaching at third base, Southworth saw Jurges’ misplay and sent Mize home. At first, that appeared to be a mistake. “Mize looked like a gone goose, but Danning, over-eager, despite a thin veneer of nonchalance, took his eye off the ball to see whether he’d have Mize by 10 feet or 20, and that was his undoing,” J. Roy Stockton wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He fumbled the bounding ball, and Mize scored the winning run.”

The official scorer ruled the play a triple with an error on Danning, simultaneously taking away Mize’s RBI and giving him the cycle.

Mize’s four-hit day raised his season average to .292 and paced a Cardinals offense that finished the game with 13 hits. Lanier was credited with the win after pitching two scoreless innings in relief, while Lynn took the loss for the Giants.

In the second game of the double-header, the Cardinals again broke a ninth-inning tie with a clutch walk-off hit, this time an RBI single by Terry Moore. With the wins, the Cardinals improved to 29-41 on the season and 14-12 under Southworth, who had taken over the club midseason.

While the Giants stumbled to a sixth-place finish, Southworth’s Cardinals surged, finishing the year with an 84-69 record, good for third place in the National League.

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

The post Johnny Mize completes cycle with walk-off triple: 7/7/1940 first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.