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Dizzy Dean

American baseball player and coach

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ3032684
Source-derived summary

Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean (January 16, 1910 – July 17, 1974), also known as Jerome Herman Dean (both the 1910 and the 1920 Censuses show his name as "Jay"), was an American professional baseball pitcher. During his Major League Baseball (MLB) career, he played for the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Browns.

A brash and colorful personality, Dean is the last National League (NL) pitcher to win 30 games in one season (1934). After his playing career, Dean became a popular television sports commentator. Dean was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953. When the Cardinals reopened the team Hall of Fame in 2014, he was inducted in the inaugural class.

Early life

Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean was born on January 16, 1910, in Lucas, Arkansas, and attended public school only through second grade. He earned his nickname in 1929 in San Antonio, Texas, while in the U.S. Army and pitching for the Fort Sam Houston baseball team.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Dizzy Dean” as american baseball player and coach. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dizzy, Dean and American.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1910, 1974, 1920, 1934—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1910-01-16. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Dizzy, Dean and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Dizzy Dean”, the useful work is to connect “american baseball player and coach” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3032684. VIAF identifies the subject as 8816825. The Library of Congress control number is n85113819. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1974, 1920 and 1934.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Dizzy Dean”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Dizzy Dean primary sources, Dizzy Dean archive and Dizzy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Dizzy Dean”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Dizzy Dean” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.