The second in an occasional sequence of profiles on Southern California athletes who’ve flourished of their post-playing careers.
The growth Los Angeles Angels have been simply 5 months outdated in September 1961 when the group known as up three minor leaguers who would come to outline the fledgling franchise’s early years.
Jim Fregosi, a teenage shortstop, would go on to make six All-Star groups and win a Gold Glove. Proper-hander Dean Likelihood, who turned 20 that summer season, would win Rookie of the 12 months and Cy Younger awards and lead the American League in wins, ERA, shutouts and innings pitched. And Buck Rodgers would catch for 9 large league seasons earlier than managing on the minor and main league stage for the Angels.
However solely Dan Ardell, a light-hitting first baseman who was known as up with them, would do one thing that had by no means been completed earlier than on Sept. 20 towards the Detroit Tigers. In his first large league plate look, Ardell blooped a single to proper subject, solely to see pinch-runner Ken McBride get caught rounding second base to finish the sport.
“I’m the only one to only get one hit. And the one hit was a walk-off loss,” he mentioned. “Not easy to do.”
There have been few witnesses since many within the crowd of three,116 at Detroit’s Tiger Stadium had left lengthy earlier than the ninth inning. Ardell would seem in six extra video games, 4 as a pinch-runner, and make six extra plate appearances and not using a hit, putting out twice, strolling as soon as and dropping down a sacrifice bunt to complete with a .250 lifetime batting common.
It wasn’t ok to get him a plaque within the Corridor of Fame however you possibly can nonetheless discover him listed there, alongside the opposite 20,964 males who’ve performed within the majors.
“It’s a very low number,” Ardell mentioned, acknowledging the accomplishment. “Very low.”
But greater than six a long time later, Ardell appears to be like again on his month with the Angels with neither delight nor disappointment. He has gone on to stay a wealthy life, one which has included well-paying jobs in banking and asset administration, a 41-year marriage that produced 4 kids and 6 grandchildren, and completely no regrets a couple of baseball profession that was so brief it’s remembered largely for a teammate’s base-running blunder.
1. Jim Fregosi throughout a recreation in Anaheim in 1965. (Transcendental Graphics / Getty Pictures) 2. Dean Likelihood received a Cy Younger Award with the Angels. (Related Press) 3. Wealthy Rollins of the Minnesota Twins swings and misses as Angels catcher Buck Rodgers catches the pitch in a 1962 recreation. All three gamers have been known as as much as the Angels in September 1961 together with Dan Ardell, whose profession solely lasted seven video games. (Hy Peskin Archive / Getty Pictures)
“I never had a desire to be a major league ballplayer,” mentioned Ardell, a retired actual property government who made $1,250 for his large league cameo. “I loved playing baseball, but once I started playing professionally, I was bored. I was disinterested.”
In reality, the bookish Ardell in all probability by no means ought to have been there in any respect. However after profitable the School World Sequence as a sophomore at USC, he accepted a $37,500 bonus to depart faculty 5 semesters in need of a level to signal with the Angels.
Nonetheless, he hedged his bets simply the identical.
“They wanted to give me $35,000 and I said I need $37,500 because that would give me the $500 a semester [tuition] at ‘SC that I needed,” Ardell mentioned.
The newly born Angels had simply two minor league groups, so Ardell was despatched to the Dodgers’ Class D farm membership in Artesia, N.M. His supervisor was Spider Jorgensen, whose large league debut in 1947 had been considerably overshadowed by teammate Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s shade line that day. Since Jorgensen’s tools by no means made it to the ballpark, he performed third base that day utilizing an infielder’s glove he borrowed from Robinson.
The group Jorgensen managed went 48-78 and completed final, 29½ video games out of first within the Sophomore League — so dangerous that Sports activities Illustrated got here to New Mexico to doc its mediocrity. Ardell completed that first season with extra strikeouts (32) than hits (30) in 125 at-bats, however he was large, left-handed and performed first base — three attributes that have been sufficient to get him a trial with an Angels group that entered September 30 video games behind the league-leading Yankees.
“I basically played second string at ‘SC,” Ardell mentioned. “So I go from second string to Class D ball — which wasn’t as good as our ‘SC team — to the big leagues all within 60 days. At age 20, it was an incredible roller coaster.”
It was a experience he shortly drained off. He didn’t drink and he was about to get married, so the frat home environment of knowledgeable baseball group wasn’t one he partook of. After three extra minor league seasons, he retired at 23.
“I learned a lot about myself,” he mentioned of these three largely sad summers.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it. It was that he didn’t need to do it. Being an enormous league ballplayer might have been some children’ dream, nevertheless it wasn’t his.
“I got no satisfaction out of it. And I was bored,” he mentioned. “It just wasn’t that interesting to me once I had to make my living doing it.
“If you don’t love what you’re doing, if you don’t appreciate and like what you’re doing, it becomes hard work.”
At 84, Ardell has a straightforward smile and a fast, self-deprecating wit he employs usually. He’s nonetheless at his enjoying weight of 190 kilos, however he says he’s misplaced 2 inches off a body that when rose to 6-foot-2. And he now not strikes with the pace or grace that allowed him to steal seven bases in his first minor league season.
There is no such thing as a memorabilia, no remnants of his short-lived profession in his hillside house in Laguna Seaside’s Bluebird Canyon, a couple of half-mile from the Pacific Ocean. He gave his gloves away throughout a storage sale shortly after he give up enjoying and a grandson took down the few footage he had held on the wall.
After retiring with a .252 common and 45 house runs in 389 minor league video games, Ardell went again to school, then studied actual property, working for Union Financial institution and Wells Fargo. He finally began an actual property asset administration firm along with his twin brother Dave, an equally gifted baseball participant who performed at UCLA, the place he was the group captain.
After retiring with a .252 common and 45 house runs in 389 minor league video games, Dan Ardell returned to high school at USC, then studied actual property, working for Union Financial institution and Wells Fargo.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Occasions)
That anybody remembers he performed in any respect is each flattering and befuddling for Ardell, who receives a couple of dozen autograph requests within the mail every year.
“I mean, how do they even know my address?” he requested.
Nonetheless, he solutions each letter. Some followers ship outdated photographs or baseball playing cards which might be essentially do-it-yourself since Ardell by no means acquired a Topps bubblegum card of his personal.
“In those days anybody who signed a bonus, Topps would sign,” he mentioned. “So they came to Artesia, where I was playing, and said ‘we want to give you a Topps card. And we’ll pay you five bucks’.
“I said, ‘I think I need 10.’ So I’m the only only major leaguer who never had a Topps card.”
Which isn’t to say Ardell has no mementos from his profession. A fastball he didn’t see on a poorly lit subject in San José slipped beneath the invoice of his batting helmet and struck him flush within the head one evening.
“I woke up the next day. You could see the seam where the baseball hit. I still have a dent,” he mentioned with a chuckle, pointing to a spot within the heart of his brow.
It wasn’t till three a long time after he walked away from the sport that Ardell got here to understand what he had achieved — and solely then after marrying Jean Hastings, who would shortly change into a nationally acknowledged baseball educational and author.
Ardell and Hastings — a Brooklyn native who had at all times been a baseball fanatic — have been residing in the identical Orange County neighborhood when a mutual good friend instructed they exit on a date.
“She had just read ‘Ball Four,’” Ardell mentioned, referencing Jim Bouton’s e book in regards to the raunchy, less-seemly facet of baseball. “So she said no, baseball players are to look at, they’re not to touch.”
Dan Ardell says he receives a couple of dozen autograph requests within the mail every year, with some followers sending outdated photographs or do-it-yourself baseball playing cards since Ardell by no means acquired a Topps card of his personal. “I mean, how do they even know my address?” he mentioned.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Occasions)
She went on the date anyway, then married Ardell a few years later in 1981. Jean, 79, died in 2022 after a brief, ferocious battle with leukemia, however within the greater than 40 years she spent with Ardell, she slowly rekindled his love for a recreation he had all however forgotten.
They went to conferences and symposiums, the place Jean spoke on the magic and the poetry of baseball. They visited the Corridor of Fame, traveled to Arizona for spring coaching and attended numerous Angels video games, watching on TV those they couldn’t attend in particular person.
“It was definitely part of her,” grandson Garrett Tyler mentioned.
Jean not solely helped Ardell put his baseball profession into perspective, she helped put his life in perspective. Shortly after they married, “I decided to have a mission statement,” Ardell mentioned. “And my mission statement was to make a difference in the lives of others.”
“Ten years later,” he added “I changed it to make a positive difference.”
He noticed that want at work in Jean, a political liberal who, along with her baseball writing, additionally labored with a nonprofit known as Braver Angels that seeks to bridge the political divide by bringing Democrats and Republicans collectively. It was a philosophy she lived by marrying Ardell, a lifelong Republican who solid his first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater however later drove a automotive sporting a “Republicans for Obama” bumper sticker.
Ardell was already working with Alternative Worldwide, a worldwide nonprofit that alleviates generational poverty by microfinancing group initiatives each in Southern California and overseas. However now the bridge that he and Jean constructed grew to become obvious via the distinction being made — not solely in these affected communities, however in his personal soul as nicely.
Tyler mentioned he grew up enjoying catch along with his grandfather, who attended all his Little League video games. However it was his grandmother who instructed him about Ardell’s skilled profession.
“He was always a little bit reluctant to talk about it. My grandma was the one that kind of opened him up,” mentioned Tyler, 25, who adopted his grandparents into baseball, the place he works as supervisor of concessions for the Amarillo Sod Poodles, the double A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“I’ve talked to him a lot about that. He told me that he just didn’t have the confidence. He knew that he was good, but I don’t think he really understood it. I don’t know if he necessarily misses it or feels like he missed out. I think he was more appreciative of the journey that it took him on and how he’s evolved into a different love for baseball.”
As he has grown older, Tyler mentioned that’s the a part of his grandfather’s journey that has caught with him; the mission assertion half that claims it’s not in regards to the vacation spot or the accomplishments, however in regards to the affect you have got on these you meet alongside the best way.
In that means, he mentioned, Ardell’s brief profession is now having an outsized affect.
Tyler mentions a good friend who’s mainly enjoying without spending a dime, stranded beneath the longest rung of the minor league ladder. However he nonetheless places on a uniform every single day.
“He plays for the love of the game and just because it’s all he knows,” Tyler mentioned. “One of the things that Dan asks me that I ask my friend is, ‘do you like what you’re doing?’ And at that point it’s not about your career longevity or how much money you’re making.
“As long as you’re happy playing and you’re making ends meet, then go for it.”
Ardell wasn’t joyful enjoying, so he walked away. Three a long time later with the love and assist of a spouse who noticed baseball not as a sport however as a metaphor for all times, as a recreation the place the objective is to get house safely, Ardell started to grasp the magic, too.
His one month within the majors led him to a profession affluent sufficient that he may assist others, one that also fills his mailbox with letters from followers and one which has given him the knowledge to counsel different 23-year-olds to maintain placing on the uniform so long as it suits.
Make a constructive distinction within the lives of others.
“It was a very inconsequential part of my life that was very consequential to other people,” Ardell mentioned of his one month within the majors.
“I think of it every day.”
