Dangerous Danny Gardella

Dangerous Danny Gardella is a remarkable achievement, a must-read for all baseball fans. But this is much more than a baseball book. Elias masterfully weaves together analyses of class inequality, racial exclusion, labor history, and Cold War culture as he tells the fascinating life story of Danny Gardella, a New Yorker, ball player, rebel, entertainer, and much more, bringing long-overdue attention to the journey of a man Elias rightfully describes as a working-class hero whose largely unrecognized activism helped paved the way for today's multimillion-dollar professional athletes. --William Hoynes, professor of sociology, Vassar College, and coauthor of More Than Just a Game 'Dangerous Danny Gardella.' What do you expect when a longshoreman, with a club, makes it to the show in one year from a semi-pro hinterland! A prima donna with a high-wire act. This illuminating biography of an unexpected Renaissance man traces Danny's pioneering journey from the majors to the Mexican League to his landmark challenge to MLB's reserve clause. Gardella fought the law and the law won...but not for long, as all modern millionaire athletes should appreciate. Dangerous Dan was Henry David Thoreau as Marlon Brando on the Waterfront. --Bill ""Spaceman"" Lee, All-Star Major League pitcher, author of Have Glove Will Travel and Baseball Eccentrics A fascinating account of a fascinating ballplayer. Robert Elias spins the tale of how an unlikely working-class man from the Bronx challenged Major League's Baseball's reserve clause and helped bring about free agency. --Robert Fitts, author of Banzai Babe Ruth; Issei Baseball; and Mashi [Murakami] A fascinating look at perhaps the most consequential big leaguer you've never heard of. --Mitchell Nathanson, author of Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original, Under Jackie's Shadow, and A People's History of Baseball A largely unknown, underappreciated pioneer in the fight for free agency in baseball, Danny Gardella--""the Mexican Jumping Bean""--fought for what he thought was right. A true and quirky free spirit, Gardella perhaps also helped pave the way for integration. Robert Elias's book is revelatory--one for thoughtful readers, offering long overdue focus on this immigrant child of the Depression through the World War II years, life playing baseball in several countries, and raising a large family with a variety of working-class occupations, while seemingly never losing a certain inner impishness and mindful curiosity. --Bill Nowlin, past vice president, Society for American Baseball Research; author of Ted Williams at War; Mr. Red Sox; Tom Yawkey; and Bitten by the Red Sox Baseball Bug Baseball fans remember Curt Flood for his courageous stand against the 'reserve clause' that long held baseball players in economic bondage; now, thanks to Robert Elias, they might remember the name Danny Gardella as well. In this thoroughly researched book, Elias tells the story of a surprising and fascinating man who sacrificed his major league career to help rid baseball of the reserve clause. His life truly was a hero's journey. --Matthew Goodman, bestselling author of The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team; Paris Undercover; and Eighty Days Before there was Curt Flood, there was Danny Gardella opening the path to free agency in baseball and other pro sports. Dangerous Danny Gardella tells the unusual, colorful, and impactful story of how he did this. --Andrew Zimbalist, sports industry consultant and author of Baseball and Billions; In the Best Interests of Baseball; and May the Best Team Win By rescuing New York Giants outfielder Danny Gardella from obscurity, Robert Elias illuminates an important passage in baseball's labor, ethnic, and racial history. Elias's biography paints a fascinating portrait of a proud and multifaceted baseball rebel who mounted an early challenge to the reserve clause--and endured heavy penalties for so doing. --William Simons, co-director, The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture and professor emeritus of history, SUNY Oneonta Contemporary professional baseball players reaping the benefits of free agency and unionization are essentially unaware of the pioneering efforts of Danny Gardella who challenged the sport's reserve clause and antitrust exemption in post-World War II America. This historical amnesia is addressed by Robert Elias in his biography of Gardella, who was a working-class stiff from the Bronx who realized his baseball dream playing for the New York Giants, jumped to the Mexican League, confronted a blacklist upon his return to the United States, and decided to challenge the baseball establishment. Elias provides a path-breaking biography that places the life of Gardella within the historical context of a post-World War II America in which corporate interests employed the Cold War and anticommunism to undermine the gains made by labor during the New Deal. Dangerous Danny Gardella will appeal to both scholars and baseball fans who seek to understand how baseball reflects the larger society and culture. --Ron Briley, author of The Baseball Film in Postwar America; The Politics of Baseball; and Class at Bat, Gender on Deck, and Race in the Hole Danny Gardella's unbelievable life is the skeleton key that unlocks the true meaning of baseball in America. In this book, Robert Elias gives us not only a hell of a character study, but a deeper understanding of the national pastime in all its glory and folly. This book made me want to get out my notebook and start writing about history and baseball. --Eric Nusbaum, author of Stealing Home and former sports editor of VICE Magazine Freethinkers, free spirits, and square pegs like the heroic blue-collar Danny Gardella rarely fare well in baseball, America's most orthodox sport, but this compelling and engrossing book shines a light on a David who took on Goliath to stand up against the injustice and hypocrisy of MLB's lordly potentates. The myth of baseball's golden age, hot dogs, and apple pie is shattered in this book, when players were treated like farm animals, peons, and ungrateful children, and influential sportswriters were unapologetic shills and mouthpieces for ownership. The world needs more guys like Gardella who refuse to bend the knee to unfair labor practices. Gardella's story has flown under the radar for too long, and Robert Elias spins a gripping tale abetted by meticulous research. Danny hated to see a dog on a leash and Elias's book has set Gardella free to roam the field of dreams in the minds of readers for years to come. --Jon Leonoudakis, award-winning baseball documentarian/filmmaker and historian, Sweet Spot series, and author of Baseball Pioneers In Dangerous Danny Gardella, Robert Elias has taken a name that some baseball fans know only from a court case and given us a detailed flesh-and-blood portrait of a real human being. When Gardella sued Organized Baseball in 1947, he struck one of the first legal blows against the reserve clause. Thanks to Elias, we now know who Gardella was, his talents and his foibles, his love for baseball, music, and family, and we come to understand how he found the courage to strike a blow that set Organized Baseball back on its heels and began to propel the game toward modernity. --Steven P. Gietschier, author of Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years In bringing back to life one of baseball's more colorful if conflicted players, Robert Elias has made an impressive contribution to not just baseball history but also the social history of America after World War II. --Lee Lowenfish, author of The Imperfect Diamond, Branch Rickey, and Baseball's Endangered Species In this fascinating study, Robert Elias explores the remarkable career and life of Danny Gardella, baseball rebel, iconoclast, and 'trailblazer' in the fight for player rights in the postwar era. Acrobat, gymnast, poet, self-taught philosopher, singer, and 'working stiff, ' Gardella was more than just a ballplayer. Likewise, Elias's intelligent and engaging work is more than just another baseball biography. Capturing the flavor and multi-faceted character of American life during and after the war, it explores the grander social realities that Gardella personified; the process of ethnic assimilation, the struggle against racism, and the bitter labor wars of postwar America. In short, this beautifully contextualized biography is sports history as it was meant to be written. --Colin Howell, professor emeritus, McCain-McLean Center for the Study of Sport, Business and Health, Saint Mary's University; author of Hardscrabble Diamonds and Northern Sandlots Kudos to Robert Elias for bringing to light the fascinating story of Danny Gardella, one of baseball's most overlooked and significant pioneer rebels. While his major-league career was unremarkable, the cerebral and colorful Bronx native was the first player who dared to publicly challenge baseball's reserve clause by suing Major League Baseball in 1947. By so doing, he set in motion the process that ultimately led to free agency, which changed the game forever. --Lawrence Baldassaro, author of Tony Lazzeri: Yankees Legend and Baseball Pioneer Robert Elias's wonderful biography of Danny Gardella, who one sportswriter said led the league in laughter, jumps off the pages and sprays seltzer in your face. Elias beautifully tells the story of one of the most important and colorful ball players you've perhaps never heard of. Gardella challenged baseball's reserve clause a generation before Curt Flood. He also was an opera singer, acrobat, prankster, fitness buff, and boxer, who walked on his hands and quoted Plato (probably at the same time). --Chris Lamb, author of Stolen Dreams, Blackout, and Conspiracy of Silence There is no one better than Robert Elias at connecting the events of US history and how those landmark moments were seen on the baseball diamond. With Dangerous Danny Gardella Elias takes us through the life of a forgotten, yet highly important and eccentric ballplayer for the New York Giants. Gardella played major league baseball preceding the end of World War Two. With the returning veterans from the War, life changed for the American labor force as well as players in major league baseball. Baseball jobs were scarce for many of the current players. Not getting a contract to his liking, Gardella jumped to the newly formed Mexican League. After the league's demise, Gardella's subsequent attempts to return to major league baseball failed when the major leagues arbitrarily suspended him and others for playing in Mexico. This led to his landmark lawsuit against major league baseball's reserve clause and it's anti-trust exemption. The result of this lawsuit, settled by the owners, is the first major step to the eventual removal of the reserve clause.... You might not know Danny Gardella now, but after reading the story you will absolutely appreciate his unique toughness along with his very important role in shaping baseball's labor market as we know it today. Dangerous Danny Gardella is another very important, well-documented story from Robert Elias. --Marty Lurie, award-winning host, Talkin' Baseball and American Inning While Danny Gardella's pivotal role in challenging the reserve clause is only now gaining recognition, Robert Elias offers the first comprehensive exploration of this complex figure. In Dangerous Danny Gardella, Elias weaves a captivating narrative that blends labor struggles, courtroom drama, and, of course, baseball. --Christian Trudeau, co-editor of the Journal of Canadian Baseball and professor of economics, University of Windsor With this compelling and well-crafted biography, Robert Elias continues his exploration of players who had a large and lasting impact on the game. Dangerous Danny Gardella brings to life a colorful character of WWII and postwar baseball, and in doing so reveals the considerable bias of sports writers and even baseball's preeminent publication, The Sporting News, which sided with team owners and baseball commissioner Landis over players during the latter's battle for rights and decent wages. --George Gmelch, author of Inside Pitch; Playing with Tigers; In the Ballpark; and Baseball Beyond Our Borders