Late Bloomers: Dazzy Vance

Like a lot of people in early 20th century, it’s not clear what Dazzy Vance’s actual name was.

For instance, one of my great-grandmothers is listed in records as being named Pasqualina, or Pasqualine, or Pasqualena, or some other spelling of her first name. Her maiden name is variously shown as either Collizzo or Collizza, sometimes with only only “l,” but usually with two. It didn’t really matter, because everyone in her life called her Lena, and once she married my great-grandfather she was known as only Lena Rizzo for the final 75 years of her life, but her actual birth name remains murky.

Likewise I had a grandfather born as either Alphonso or Alphonsus White, with the middle name Paul. He detested his first name, whichever spelling it should have been, and eventually changed it legally to just Paul A. White since his entire family called him Paul anyway. The correct spelling of his original name, and when (or even if) he changed it, is a mystery.

In that same vein, either Arthur Charles Vance or Charles Arthur Vance (or even Clarence Arthur Vance in a couple of records) was born in tiny Orient, Iowa in 1891. Depending on whether you’re looking at a census record, or a draft registration, or a death notice, you’re usually going to get either Arthur listed as his first name with Charles as his middle name, or the reverse. There’s no consensus. The folks at Wikipedia list him as Charles Arthur. His Hall of Fame plaque lists him as Arthur Charles.

But, as it was in the case of my relatives, the discrepancy didn’t really matter for all practical purposes. Once he was old enough to pitch, people started calling him Dazzy, and that name lasted for the rest of his life.