SPRINGDALE, Ark. -- Paul 'Daffy' Dean, one of two flame-throwing Arkansas brothers who combined to win all four games of the 1934 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals, liked to smile and say major league baseball 'never did nothin' for me but ruin my cotton pickin'.'
The soft-spoken brother of flamboyant pitcher Dizzy Dean died Tuesday of a massive heart attack at Springdale Hospital. He was 67.
Services will be at 2 p.m. Thursday in Clarksville.
Heart problems compounded by diabetes troubled Dean for most of the past year. He had a heart attack Jan. 27, 1980, and another, more serious one while recovering in the hospital.
Survivors include his wife, Dorothy, two sons, two daughters and 15 grandchildren.
Dean lived mostly in the shadow of older brother Dizzy, who died in 1974. Together they pitched the Cardinals into the World Series in 1934, Daffy's rookie year.
'He won 19 games during the season, two more in the Series and pitched the only no-hitter of the year against the Brooklyn Dodgers,' said Dean's son, Sandy. 'I don't think many rookie pitchers could say they'd done something like that.
'And there was nobody closer than Dad and Diz. When Dad had his heart attack last year, I remember him saying that he wasn't quite back with Dizzy yet but he would be soon.'
Sandy Dean said his father worked all year at odd jobs in 1930 and made $150 to buy Dizzy out of the Army in the days when conscription could be canceled for cash. Dizzy entered the major leagues that year.
Three years later, fresh out of the cotton field at age 17, Daffy Dean signed with the Cardinals for $100 and a train ticket to the Houston farm club, his son said. That year, he won 28 games in the minors before moving up to the Cardinals in 1934.
Dizzy was in his prime when his younger brother broke into the big leagues, and 'someone with an ear for promotion' stuck the nickname 'Daffy' on him, his son said. Dean never particularly cared for it and no one in his family ever used it.
'That's a story no one ever got straight,' Sandy Dean said. ''Daffy' came from no particular place, and 'Dizzy' picked his up in the Army. He was always doing crazy things, so he became known as 'that dizzy guy in the Army.''
In 1934, the Dean brothers combined for 49 wins. Dizzy boasted in the World Series that 'me 'n' Paul' would win two games each in the World Series. They made good on the prediction.
Daffy Dean won 19 games in 1935 for the Cardinals but injured ligaments in his pitching arm in 1936 and never regained his form. He went on to the New York Giants and St. Louis Browns before retiring in 1943 with a 50-34 lifetime record and a 3.75 ERA.
His top salary at his peak was $8,500 a year.
'He was a little bitter about that compared to the high salaries today because he said he thought big money was hurting the game,' his son said.
In the late 1940s and early '50s, Dean owned and coached a series of minor league teams in Texas, New Mexico and Arkansas. Recently, he taught a baseball camp at Springfield, Ill.
Dean divided his time between Dallas and Springdale, making personal appearances and speeches. He remained an avid baseball fan and like to sit up nights listening to the Cardinals, his son said.
