September 21, 1934: Daffy Dean dazzles with no-hitter against Brooklyn

“We’re just a couple of natural born pitchers from down Texas way,” bantered Paul “Daffy” Dean about himself and his famous brother Dizzy. “Two good natured ordinary fellers who God gave perfect pitchin’ bodies.”1 After Dizzy worked on a no-hitter for 7⅓ innings in the first game of a doubleheader, Daffy upstaged his loquacious older sibling by tossing a no-hitter to complete the St. Louis Cardinals’ shutout sweep of the Brooklyn Dodgers. “There’s little you can add when writing about the Deans,” quipped Brooklyn sportswriter Tommy Holmes. “Superlatives are useless.”2 But that didn’t prohibit sportswriters from trying. Daffy’s remarkable performance, praised scribe George Smith of the Brooklyn Citizen, “overshadows all of the miracle feats of the pitcher’s mound in the last twelve years”; he considered it the best-pitched game since Charlie Robertson tossed a perfect game in 1923.3

The Redbirds were surging at just the right time. The rough-and-tumble Gas House Gang had won 11 of its last 14 games, all on the road as part of a grueling a 23-game, 3½-week road swing. Suddenly catapulting themselves back into the pennant race, the Cardinals (86-56) had erased a seven-game deficit on September 6 and trailed the NL-leading New York Giants by 3½ games with just 11 games to play. Player-manager Frankie Frisch called on the Dean boys to start the doubleheader, their second in two days.

While Dizzy Dean, in his third full season, had captured the attention of the baseball world with his down-home aphorisms and braggadocio, as well as his exploits on the mound, rookie Paul was much less talkative. He had emerged as a star the previous season with the Columbus Red Birds in the American Association, winning 22 games, including a no-hitter. Upon Paul’s arrival on the big-league club, Dizzy predicted confidently that the duo would win 45 games. Few sportswriters had any reason to doubt him. But Paul struggled as the season commenced, yielding eight earned runs in his first six innings in three rough outings. Then he caught fire, winning his next eight straight starts. The press dubbed the 21-year-old right-hander Daffy, but he despised the moniker, which neither he nor his teammates used. But it nonetheless stuck. Unlike his brother, Paul was reserved and cut a less imposing figure on the mound. At 6-feet 2 and 170 pounds, Paul looked “more like a drug clerk than a famous athlete,” jested Dodgers beat writer George Smith.4

An estimated 20,000 spectators at Ebbets Field took in the Friday afternoon twin bill, needed to make up two games canceled by inclement weather two weeks earlier.5 Holding court at the team’s hotel on the morning of this game, Dizzy bragged that the Dodgers “will be pitching against one-hit Dean and no-hit Dean today.”6 He was almost right. In the first game Dizzy held the sixth-place Dodgers (65-77) hitless for 7⅓ innings, settling on a three-hit shutout behind a 17-hit, 13-run Cardinals barrage to record his NL-best 27th victory.

Dizzy was a tough act to follow under any circumstances, but Paul was pitching the best ball in his career. He was coming off two extra-inning complete games, both in high-leverage contests against the Giants at the Polo Grounds, tossing a 12-inning shutout on September 13 and an 11-inning, 3-1 victory three days later, pushing his slate to 17-9 (3.70 ERA).

The game unfolded as a scoreless pitchers’ duel through five innings. Paul didn’t look sharp in the first inning. After leadoff hitter Buzz Boyle fanned, Lonnie Frey smashed what Lee Scott of the Brooklyn Citizen considered a sure hit, but left fielder Ducky Medwick made a spectacular grab.7 Dean walked the next batter, Len Koenecke, on a 3-and-2 count. “I pitched low and outside to Lennie,” explained Paul, “and low and outside it went.”8

The Dodgers’ 32-year-old right-hander Ray Benge was pitching just as well. A dependable workhorse, Benge had averaged 221 innings his previous six season and was enjoying his best campaign (14-11). He yielded just one hit – a single to Dean in the third.

The Cardinals scored the game’s first run in the sixth. Dean stroked a one-out double to center. (A capable hitter, Dean batted .241 on 20 hits in 1934.) Pepper Martin followed with another two-bagger to drive him home. The Redbirds tallied their second run in the seventh on Ripper Collins’s single to plate Medwick, who had doubled. The offensive star of the game, Medwick tripled in the eighth and scored the Cardinals’ third and final run on Collins’s groundout.

Staked to the lead, Dean mowed the Dodgers down. “My curve was breaking good and as the game went along I felt looser and better,” he said.9 With two outs in the seventh, Dean and his rookie batterymate, Bill DeLancey, met on the mound to discuss their approach to Sam Leslie.10 The Dodgers cleanup hitter, Leslie began the day hitting a team-high .326, and had lofted two deep fly balls against Dean in this game. Leslie connected for another one and Dean immediately thought it was gone. He “slammed a fast ball to left center that looked like a home run,” said Paul.11 Medwick, considered among baseball’s best left fielders, raced back and made a running catch to end the inning.

With palpable tension in the last several frames, the crowd was firmly on Dean’s side, cheering and clapping after each batter he retired in his quest for a no-hitter. Dodgers first-year skipper Casey Stengel made Dean earn it. To start the ninth, Casey played matchups, calling on left-handed-hitting rookie Jim Bucher to hit for Al Lopez. Dean rung him up for his sixth strikeout. Casey sent in another left-handed-hitting pinch-hitter, September call-up Johnny McCarthy. He lofted a high popup that second baseman Frankie Frisch secured, eliciting another round of applause. An out away from a feat his Hall of Fame brother would never accomplish in the majors, Dean faced Boyle, who lined a chopper to shortstop Leo Durocher. “The ball was so sharply hit that it struck Leo in the chest,” remarked sportswriter Bill McCullough in the Brooklyn Times Union, adding, “There wasn’t a heart in the ball park that wasn’t in the mouth.”12 The feisty Durocher, who would later become a star player and notorious manager of ‘Dem Bums, recovered quickly. He retrieved the ball in the dirt and rifled a shot to first baseman Ripper Collins to retire the speedy Boyle, ending the game in 1 hour and 38 minutes and securing Dean’s no-no.

Pandemonium broke out. Dean’s teammates mobbed him on the mound and fans poured onto the field. During the economic hardship of the Great Depression, the Deans had touched a nerve among baseball fans and were wildly popular wherever they played. A police escort was finally required to help Paul and his teammates retreat to the dressing room.

In a dominating performance, Paul Dean retired the last 25 batters he faced. “Everything went my way,” he stated in his subdued, modest manner. “I was always ahead of the hitters.”13 The big leagues’ only no-hitter in 1934, Dean’s gem was the first no-hitter in 1,140 days, breaking the longest no-hitter drought in history (as of 2021 still the longest).14 Bobby Burke of the Washington Senators was the last to turn the trick, holding the Boston Red Sox hitless on August 8, 1931. Dean’s no-no was the first in the NL since the Giants Carl Hubbell beat the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 8, 1929. The previous Cardinals hurler to author a no-hitter was Jesse Haines, who held the Boston Braves hitless on July 17, 1924.

The Cardinals’ doubleheader shutout sweep cut the Giants lead to three games. Paul lost his next two outings, then tossed a complete game to put the Cardinals into sole possession of first place, on September 29. The next day Dizzy tossed a shutout on two days’ rest to win his 30th game and capture the pennant on the final day of the season.

Paul Dean finished the season with a 19-11 slate (3.43 ERA, 123 ERA+) and led the majors by striking out 5.8 batters per nine innings. The Gas House Gang etched its name in baseball lore by winning the World Series in seven games over the Detroit Tigers. And once again it was the Dean Brothers’ show. Dizzy won two games, but Paul proved to be even more dazzling, tossing two complete games, yielding just one earned run in each.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, SABR.org, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

NOTES

1 Ray J. Gillespie, “Paul Dean Only Rookie to Pitch No-Hit Contest,” St. Louis Star and Times, September 22, 1934: 11.

2 Tommy Holmes, “Dean Brothers Bubbling Over with Fame,” Brooklyn Eagle, September 22, 1934: 6.

3 George Smith, “Paul Dean Not Greatly Excited Over the Doings of the Dean Brothers,” Brooklyn Citizen, September 22, 1934: 6.

4 Smith.

5 Smith.

6 Roscoe McGowen, “Paul Dean, Cards, Hurls No-Hit Game, New York Times, September 22, 1934: 8.

7 Lee Scott, “Brooklyn Fans Thrilled as Younger of Dean Boys Pitches No-Hitter; They Have Won 45 Games,” Brooklyn Citizen, September 22, 1934: 6.

8 Bill McCullough, “No-Hit, No Run Game by Paul Highlights Star Performance,” Brooklyn Times Union, September 22, 1934: 13.

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

10 Gillespie.

11 Gillespie.

12 McCullough.

13 McCullough.

14 “Ebbets Field No-Hitter,” NoNoHitters.com, https://www.nonohitters.com/ebbets-field-no-hitters/.