 From the outside, an attractive but otherwise unassuming highway rest area. |
 This plaque is attached to a wall. |
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From the outside, an attractive but otherwise unassuming highway rest area. |
This plaque is attached to a wall. |
Two of the top pitchers of the mid-1930s came from the tiny community of Bond, just north of Wiggins, the seat of Stone County, Miss. While Paul Dean had a respectable career, even throwing a no-hitter, his brother Jay, better known as Dizzy, had the longer and more renowned tenure, spending parts of 11 years with the Cardinals and Cubs, the latter despite an All-Star Game injury that hindered him after 1937.
For another three decades, Dean endeared himself to baseball fans everywhere with his, how shall we say, unconventional use of language on local and national broadcasts. The best known of these was his unique participle form of the word “slide”. When a runner was out because he came in standing up rather than sliding around a tag, Dean would tell the audience, “He shoulda slud.” As a Bill Veeck promotional stunt, Dean made an appearance for the Browns late in 1947 and threw four shutout innings.
Dean has his No. 17 retired by the Cardinals, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1953. His familiarity to audiences led the poet Ogden Nash to include Dean in his ”Line-Up for Yesterday”, published in 1949 and included on the mural depicted at right, on display at the rest area:
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D is for Dean, The grammatical Diz. When they asked, Who’s the tops? Said correctly, I is. |
I am not sure when the wayside opened along US 49, the road between Gulfport and Jackson, but it was dedicated to Dean in 2007. It is well-marked, within city limits not far from the Bond Cemetery where Dean was laid to rest.