FROM THE ARCHIVE: Major League teams train in area During WWII

Cape Girardeau crowd welcomed Manager Luke Sewell and others in the early contingent of the St. Louis Browns and Toledo Mud Hens at the Frisco railway station in Cape Girardeau on March 11, 1945.

Photo by G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive

Editor's note: The following story originally appeared in the Feb. 28, 1999 edition of the Southeast Missourian.

Luke Sewell, manager of the St. Louis Browns, was photographed in 1945 when he brought his baseball team to Cape Girardeau for the third time for spring training.

Jerome Hanna "Dizzy" Dean has been described as one of the greatest pitchers and most colorful personalities in baseball.

Dizzy became a big winner when he entered the major league baseball scene in 1930. Four years later, he won 30 games for the St. Louis Cardinals, leading them to the National League championship. He and his younger brother, Paul Daffey Dean, each won two world series games that year as the Cards won the series, 4-3.

The Dean Brothers were in Cape Girardeau in 1943, the first of three years that the St. Louis Browns held spring training in Cape Girardeau because of travel restrictions during World War II.

The elder Dean, who had suffered a sore arm that wouldn't heal, retired from baseball in 1941 to become a radio sports announcer.

Daffey Dean was a member of the 1943 Browns, and Dizzy paid a visit to his "little bruther" during spring training.

Dizzy was no stranger to Southeast Missouri fans. He played for the Cardinals from 1930 through 1937 and spent another four years with the Chicago Cubs. Dean also pitched a game or two in the Southeast Missouri area, one of them against a St. Louis Brown legend, Elam Vangilder of Cape Girardeau.

The non-major league matchup between Dean and Vangilder came at Charleston, and Vangilder came away the winner. Vangilder fanned 22 and Dean 8 in the matchup.

Vangilder pitched 11 years in the majors (1919-1939) -- nine of them for the St. Louis Browns. He won 19 games in 1922 when the Browns lost the American League race to the New York Yankees.

Vangilder pitched to some big stars -- Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig.

The Dean Boys became a pitching duo during the early 1930s with the Cards. So, it was no big surprise that Dizzy visited Daffy as he was "trying out" with the St. Louis Browns.

"Have to keep tabs on my bruther," said the older Dean, who also served as umpire in a spring training game or two. Dizzy, like members of the Browns, stayed at the Marquette Hotel in downtown Cape Girardeau.

The war years were years of baseball frenzy in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois in 1943, 1944 and 1945.

Brown fever hit Cape Girardeau, and Cardinal fever hit Cairo.

The St. Louis baseball Browns, described by fans everywhere as "one of the worst teams in major league baseball, were in Cape Girardeau. The 1942 defending National League champion St. Louis Cardinals were in Cairo.

During World War II, major league baseball teams were planning spring training at sites closer to home because of travel restrictions. William DeWitt, vice president and business manager of the Browns, announced in January 1943 his team would use facilities at Cape Girardeau.

About the same time, Cardinal president Sam Breadon said he was satisfied with accommodations offered at Cairo, with two diamonds, including old Cotter Field.

Baseball fans would never have bet that the following year, 1944, the two teams would hook up in what has been called the "Streetcar Series," in World Series play at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

The Browns captured the American League championship on the final day of the 1944 season, to face the Cardinals in old Sportsman's Park, along Grand Boulevard.

Cape Girardeau fans had been thrilled the year before, when the Browns won their first-ever, and only, American League pennant in history, because Cape Girardeau baseball fans claim it as their pennant, too.

The Browns had held spring training in Cape Girardeau for two seasons.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Raymond E. Beckman, on that final day of the season in 1944, was quoted as saying:

"It took Cape Girardeau just two years to do what Florida and California couldn't do in 40 years."

The Browns and Cardinals, before World War II, had trained in California and Florida respectively.

One of the people with "Cardinal fever" was Red Schoendienst, who appeared at the 1945 Cairo Cardinal training camp for his first major league tryout. The Illinois native made the team, played with Cardinals that year and was named as an outstanding rookie. Schoendienst later became manger of the Cardinals and still serves as a special coach for the team.

The Browns were joined in 1944 and 1945 at Cape Girardeau by one of their field teams, the Toledo Mud Hens, for spring training.

Bands greeted the players each year when they arrived at the Frisco passenger train station.

When the Browns, and the Toledo Mud Hens, of the American Association, arrived in Cape Girardeau for the 1945 training, a crowd of more than 1,500 fans met them at the Frisco station.

The Fairground Park grandstands were painted for the first time by volunteers. Fences were put up. The Arena building was filled with dirt for indoor practice, and Houck Field House changed into a pitchers' bullpen and team locker room.

The first electric pitching machine came to Cape Girardeau.

A big hit during the final spring training year here was Pete Gray, who was described as "the one-armed sensation."

It didn't take long for Gray to win the hearts of Cape Girardeau baseball fans during the spring of 1945.

In an early spring training game, the one-armed St. Louis Brown outfielder rapped out three hits in four trips to the plate, including a seventh-inning hit that gave the American League champs a victory over their field club, Toledo Mud Hens.

Gray had joined the Browns for the first time in their training camp at Cape Girardeau. In 1944, the 27-year-old Pennsylvanian, who lost his arm at age 6, hit .333 in the Southern Association with the Memphis ball club. He also stole 68 bases to lead that league in both categories.

Gray amazed teammates and fans alike in handling his position at center field. After catching the ball, Gray would throw his glove under his right armpit, rolling the ball along his wrist. He then recaptured the ball with his hand and tosses it in.