Elmer: The Dizziest, Daffiest Dean of ‘Em All

As many of you know, Dizzy Dean had another brother beyond Daffy. And his name was Elmer Dean.

The picture is a Google image – and it comes unexplained as a photo without explanation of content or source. The only mysteries in the photo are the identities of the two featured ladies. Most probably, they are either Dean blood relatives, or else. the wives of Dizzy and Paul “Daffy” Dean.

The males in the photo, top, left to right, are Dizzy, Elmer, and Paul Dean. The seated male in front is their father, sitting in between our two “guess who” girls.

What follows is the article from a story that appeared on Page 4 of The Joplin (MO) News Herald of August 10, 1934:

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Where’s Elmer?” Now Answered. Dizziest of Deans in St. Louis

St. Louis, Aug. 10 – (AP) Dizzy Dean and his brother, Paul, aces of the Cardinal pitching staff are not the only Deans who are likely to attract attention in Sportsman’s Park during the present home stand of the Cardinals. home stand which ends August 20. In answer to the question “Where’s Elmer?” a third Dean brother of that name is about to go into action.

Elmer Dean is a pitcher. But he will not report to Manager Frisch in an effort to solve his pitching problem. Instead, he will report to Blake Harper, chief of the concession department at the ball park. For Elmer pitches peanuts to fans in the stands. He sells soda pop, hot dogs, pop corn and almost anything.

Elmer Dean is said to be dizzier than either Dizzy or Paul. He was lost for four years when Dizzy and Paul, driving a flivver, got across a railroad track ahead of a freight train and he didn’t. When the long freight train finally got out of the way, Dizzy and Paul were out of sight and Elmer was four years in catching up with them.

Elmer had a tryout with Houston as a pitcher in the spring of 1933, but as a ballplayer he led the experts to believe he’d make a great peanut vender. His pitching was all right except his follow through wound up with Elmer sprawled out on his face and the ball went over the plate – that is. once in a while. After providing hilarity for the Houston camp several days, he found his nich(e) as a peanut vender, and has been a personage in the Houston Ball park ever since.

He wears a cap on which his name is printed in large capital letters. But he doesn’t need any label. Like Dizzy, he speaks for himself and for the Dean family, extolling their pitching prowess and other virtues.

Elmer has one particular hobby – it isn’t going to movies or collecting old coins – he loves to ride elevators. So if you see a fellow who looks like Dizzy or Paul Dean constantly riding in one of the elevators of the Telephone building or the Railway Exchange, well, it’s Elmer Dean getting the thrill of his lifetime. Down in Houston, Elmer is said to have traveled more miles up and down elevators than Lindbergh has flown in a plane.

- The Joplin (MO) News Herald, August 10, 1934, Page 4