Backroads and Ballplayers #11
Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from the days when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Always free and always short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.
Book Update, and "The Next Dean”
Coming in July, Hard Times and Hardball, by Jim Yeager with contributions from Arkansas Baseball Historians
I have always been fascinated by the stories from what I call Arkansas baseball’s “Golden Years,” the period in the last century when baseball was unopposed as “Arkansas’ Game.” As of today, there have been 162 Arkansas-born men who played in the American or National League since 1900. Seventy percent of those were born before World War II.
Most of those men who reached the big leagues from 1901—1970 had common rural roots, played for Sunday afternoon pass-the-hat town teams, and did not play college sports. Their love for the game helped them endure two world wars, a Great Depression, a devastating flood, and a “Dust Bowl.” Baseball was our grandparents’ game and the unique popularity of today’s game in our state is a direct result of our shared heritage. (The University of Arkansas led college baseball in cumulative and average paid attendance during the 2022 season.) WholeHogSports.com
So, in my retirement—without any particular skills, limited experience, and too much confidence, I decided to record some of the Arkansas baseball stories I researched. My friend Mike Dugan and I would talk every Saturday morning and I took notes of the tales we swapped. Mike took me to a SABR meeting where I met a guy who had more memorabilia in his sports room than most museums, a math professor who had visited thousands of the graves of deceased baseball players, and a teenager who had written a baseball encyclopedia. I was inspired. The rest is “history.”
I published Backroads and Ballplayers in 2018. I wanted to write an essay-style book with chapters of varying word counts that could be read in one sitting. That first book had about 50 chapters about men and women from our state whose baseball life reflected the colorful history of an earlier time. It kept me busy, and I hoped to sell enough books to replace our “grocery money.”
Backroads and Ballplayers is still available from Amazon and signed copies can be purchased at this link. Backroadsballplayers.com
I was blown away by the book’s popularity, which was obviously the result of a subject dear to our collective hearts. I spoke to dozens of civic clubs, historical societies, and the Arkansas Historical Association state conference. After each presentation the line formed and folks told me their “grandpa story.” I am honored to record these stories and humbled by those who think that this part of our culture is significant enough to purchase my book about Arkansas baseball history.
I am excited to announce that in July Hard Times and Hardball will continue where Backroads and Ballplayers left off. The new book contains over 400 pages about the leagues, teams, and players who were part of our state’s “Golden Age of Baseball.” I have enlisted the help of ten “contributors,” who share my affection for Arkansas baseball history and were willing to be part of this project. We promise to make the recording of this history our primary goal and to keep the cost of the book well below the typical price of a 400-page book. We hope you like it. There are no advanced sales. The first announcement that the book is available will be published in this post.
Grandpa Stories and the Deans
I mentioned in an earlier post that when I published Backroads and Ballplayers in 2018 I found out quickly that the Deans remain the unofficial First Family of Arkansas Baseball History. At almost all my presentations, someone shared a Dean story. “My dad played with Dizzy when he was growing up.” “My grandpa pitched against Dizzy and Paul in Yell County.” “I think my grandma may have dated Dizzy Dean.” The Dean legend is alive and well in Arkansas and it shows no signs of fading from the Arkansas sports pages.
If you read a few pages deep in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette sports pages this week, you saw a story about an All-State Quarterback from Elkins, Arkansas. His name is Slade Dean, but in Arkansas, he will most certainly be known as “Dizzy” Dean. Although he is an outstanding quarterback, he is also a high school pitcher who closed out the Elkins’ Conference Championship season last May with a no-hitter.
And, he has a twin brother, Stone, who was also chosen All-Conference as a power-hitting outfielder. Paul “Daffy” Dean was their great-grandfather. Their grandfather, Paul Dean Jr. was an All-State pitcher for Hot Springs Lakeside in the early 1950s and played a few seasons in the minor leagues. Paul Dean Jr.’s baseball story is an important part of the ongoing Dean history. Meeting Paul personally was the highlight of sharing my book.
A Tribute to Paul Dean Jr.
After semi-retiring, I spent nine years doing some educational technology consulting at Two Rivers School District in Yell County. It was my kind of place, with rural kids from farm families who loved sports. It was also Paul Dean Jr's kind of place. He had owned a country store there in the 1970s.
As part of one of the school’s technology programs, students in an EAST class wanted to video some authentic live interviews. Their instructor, Mrs. Kip Grimes, and I hooked them up with the Dean family, represented by Paul Dean Jr.
As the patriarch of the family, the telling of the Dean stories was his responsibility, and he told them well. Paul Jr. shared the tales of Dizzy and Paul hunting squirrels with rocks, the “Me and Paul will probably win 40 boast,” and the magic of the 1934 World Series. The morning we spent with Paul Dean Jr. was the student’s favorite project and one of the most memorable days of my 50-year career in education.
In the summer of 1955, Look magazine, the iconic biweekly pictorial read by millions of Americans, did another baseball story about a member of the Dean family. This time the laudatory two-page spread was not another recollection of the exploits of Dizzy and Daffy. Look came to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to introduce the American people to another Dean, a recent high school graduate named Paul Dean Jr. The magazine’s audacious headline promoted young Paul Jr. as, “The Greatest Dean of Them All.”
Paul Dean Jr. was born in January 1937, in the midst of one of his father’s numerous frustrating attempts to come back from chronic arm problems. Being the son of Daffy Dean brought the newborn immediate attention. Press announcements following his birth proudly announced the one-day-old right-hander was indeed blessed with the famous “Dean Hands.”
As young Paul grew up around the minor league parks where Paul Sr. served in various capacities in baseball administration, the elder Dean brothers assumed the roles that reflected their contrasting personalities. Paul Sr. was the cautious father/coach. Obviously influenced by his own career-ending arm injuries, Paul Sr. did not allow his young son to pitch competitively until he reached the age of 12, and even then, curveballs were off-limits. Diz, on the other hand, was the unrestrained cheerleader and promoter. Exaggerated promises were not a burden to him as a pitcher, and just as he had with his brother Paul, he never hesitated to make lofty predictions about his nephew.
As had always been his custom, Dizzy Dean gushed reckless quotes, and the accommodating press was eager to print them. Before Paul Jr. reached high school, Diz had already promoted him as the next great Dean. “He’s the hottest thing you ever saw,” boasted Diz, “He’s gonna make ‘em forget me and Paul.”
By the time Look came to Hot Springs in the summer of 1955, Paul Dean Jr. had become an outstanding pitcher. Despite playing every game with the weight of the Dean reputation on his shoulders, and Uncle Dizzy’s lofty expectations shadowing his every pitch, Paul Jr. was dominating for Lakeside High School and in American Legion summer baseball. At 6’ 3” and near 200 lbs., he looked every bit like the major leaguer Dizzy had predicted.
Paul Jr. signed with SMU after graduation and spent a year as a college pitcher before coming into his own by pitching in the Basin League, a college summer league in South Dakota. In the spring of 1957, the Milwaukee Braves convinced both father and son that escaping the limelight of college baseball and going pro was Paul Jr.’s best option.
Twenty-year-old Dean was assigned to Lawton, Oklahoma, the Braves Class D affiliate in the Sooner States League. At Lawton, Paul Dean Jr. would have one of the most remarkable seasons of any minor league pitcher in 1957. The season was not just noteworthy because Dean pitched well, which he did. His ERA was an excellent 2.94 and in 141 innings Dean gave up only 127 hits. The extraordinary element of the season was the astounding lack of run support in Dean’s appearances. He lost 12 one-run games and 8 times he was beaten 1—0. His win-loss record of 4—16 belied his excellent mound work. Paul Dean Jr. was one of the Braves’ top prospects.
In 1958, he was promoted to Eau Claire, the Braves Class C minor league club, but control problems resurfaced, and he was sent down to Midland in the Sophomore League in late May. “I have been wild,” Dean said, “I can’t seem to get the ball over.”
Dean was a respectable 7—6 for Midland, but he walked 79 batters in 115 innings. The “Dean Hands,” which were thought to be an asset when Paul Jr. was a child, were the culprit for his control problems. His hands were large and his fingers were long, like his father and Uncle Diz, but his middle finger was abnormally long. His grip was always in question and he had difficulty finding a release point.
Although he was invited to participate in the developmental league in Florida that winter, Paul Jr. did not report to the Braves’ Louisville club where he was assigned for 1959. He had lost his patience with baseball. Despite the Braves’ continued confidence that he might someday find the control to go with his talent, Paul Dean Jr. was ready to move on with this life outside baseball.
Dizzy Dean, influenced by his wife Pat’s love for her home in Mississippi, never called Arkansas home after he retired. Paul “Daffy” Dean never got far away. The same was true of Paul Dean Jr. He returned to his beloved Arkansas to raise his family and became a successful businessman. After retirement, Paul Dean Jr. lived his later years in Greenwood, Arkansas, where he enjoyed watching his grandchildren’s sports teams.
Arkansas lost Paul Dean Jr. on September 18, 2021. He had carried the “Dean Family Flag” with pride and class, but the Dean legacy remains in good hands. Dizzy and Stone Dean will begin their senior year of high school at Elkins High School in the fall of 2023.
Photos courtesy of Dean family. Look Magazine photos from Public Domain collection in Library of Congress
If you missed any previous posts they are available at Jim Yeager’s Substack.