Dizzy Dean – Wabash Canonball. 480918. (retro322).

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Dizzy Dean – Wabash Canonball. 480918.

Here’s something different, still comedy in a way, it’s the casual commentary of Jerome “Dizzy” Dean as he talks about baseball, sings songs, and answers fan letters.

Though it isn’t his usual thing, Dizzy comes out singing the Wabash Canonball. Dizzy offers some tips to help the young baseball player improve their pitching. He even tells how to pitch balls through a window? Just listen, it’ll make more sense straight from Dizzy Dean.

In responce to a letter from a fan, Dizzy talks about the top players and teams in 1948 for the pennant race. Another letter writer asks to find out what Dizzy’s ideal team lineup will be for an All Star team. It’s chock full of some of the greatest names in baseball history, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gherig, Stan Musial, and more.

It wouldn’t be a show from Dizzy Dean without a personal story from behind the senes of baseball. Today he tells secrets on Frank Frisch, and pranks that he pulled, and had pulled on him.

This is the last show in the Summer replacement season, and Dizzy gives a last word on his picks for the World Series.

Bonus Tracks:
Falstaff. 1945. Poetry Week.
Tex Ritter. 1948. The Bowl Weevil Song.
Dorothy Shea. 1948. Making Love Mountain Style.

Note: As found on Wikq ipedia.

Frisch was a switch-hitter who threw right-handed. Born in the Bronx, New York City, he attended Fordham Preparatory School, graduating in 1916.[3] He went on to Fordham University where he continued to star in four sports: Baseball, Football, Basketball and Track. There, given his speed, he earned the nickname “The Fordham Flash.”

A word on Dizzy Dean:

Dizzy Dean made a one-game comeback on September 28, 1947. After retiring as a player, the still-popular Dean was hired as a broadcaster by the perennially cash-poor Browns to drum up some badly needed publicity. After broadcasting several poor pitching performances in a row, he grew frustrated, saying on the air, “Doggone it, I can pitch better than nine out of the ten guys on this staff!” The wives of the Browns pitchers complained, and management, needing to sell tickets somehow, took him up on his offer and had him pitch the last game of the season. At age 37, Dean pitched four innings, allowing no runs, and rapped a single in his only at-bat. Rounding first base, he pulled his hamstring. Returning to the broadcast booth at the end of the game, he said, “I said I can pitch better than nine of the ten guys on the staff, and I can. But I’m done. Talking’s my game now, and I’m just glad that muscle I pulled wasn’t in my throat.”

An English teacher once wrote to him, complaining that he shouldn’t use the word “ain’t” on the air, as it was a bad example to children. On the air, Dean said, “A lot of folks who ain’t sayin’ ‘ain’t,’ ain’t eatin’. So, Teach, you learn ’em English, and I’ll learn ’em baseball.”