{"id":115858,"date":"2025-08-03T14:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/115858\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T14:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T14:56:11","slug":"how-dan-ardells-life-came-to-be-much-more-than-his-brief-angels-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/115858\/","title":{"rendered":"How Dan Ardell’s life came to be much more than his brief Angels career"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The second in an occasional series<\/a> of profiles on Southern California athletes who have flourished in their post-playing careers.<\/p>\n

The expansion Los Angeles Angels were just 5 months old in September 1961 when the team called up three minor leaguers who would come to define the fledgling franchise\u2019s early years.<\/p>\n

Jim Fregosi<\/a>, a teenage shortstop, would go on to make six All-Star teams and win a Gold Glove. Right-hander Dean Chance<\/a>, who turned 20 that summer, would win Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards and lead the American League in wins, ERA, shutouts and innings pitched. And Buck Rodgers<\/a> would catch for nine big league seasons before managing at the minor and major league level for the Angels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But only Dan Ardell<\/a>, a light-hitting first baseman who was called up with them, would do something that had never been done before on Sept. 20 against the Detroit Tigers<\/a>. In his first big league plate appearance, Ardell blooped a single to right field, only to see pinch-runner Ken McBride get caught rounding second base to end the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the only one to only get one hit. And the one hit was a walk-off loss,\u201d he said. \u201cNot easy to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were few witnesses since many in the crowd of 3,116 at Detroit\u2019s Tiger Stadium had left long before the ninth inning. Ardell would appear in six more games, four as a pinch-runner, and make six more plate appearances without a hit, striking out twice, walking once and dropping down a sacrifice bunt to finish with a .250 lifetime batting average.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t good enough to get him a plaque in the Hall of Fame but you can still find him listed there, alongside the other 20,964 men who have played in the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very low number,\u201d Ardell said, acknowledging the accomplishment. \u201cVery low.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet more than six decades later, Ardell looks back on his month with the Angels with neither delight nor disappointment. He has gone on to live a rich life, one that has included well-paying jobs in banking and asset management, a 41-year marriage that produced four children and six grandchildren, and absolutely no regrets about a baseball career that was so short it\u2019s remembered mostly for a teammate\u2019s base-running blunder.<\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"Jim <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"Dean <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"Rich <\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Jim Fregosi during a game in Anaheim in 1965. (Transcendental Graphics \/ Getty Images) 2.<\/strong> Dean Chance won a Cy Young Award with the Angels. (Associated Press) 3.<\/strong> Rich Rollins of the Minnesota Twins swings and misses as Angels catcher Buck Rodgers catches the pitch in a 1962 game. All three players were called up to the Angels in September 1961 along with Dan Ardell, whose career only lasted seven games. (Hy Peskin Archive \/ Getty Images) <\/p>\n

\u201cI never had a desire to be a major league ballplayer,\u201d said Ardell, a retired real estate executive who made $1,250 for his big league cameo. \u201cI loved playing baseball, but once I started playing professionally, I was bored. I was disinterested.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the bookish Ardell probably never should have been there at all. But after winning the College World Series as a sophomore at USC<\/a>, he accepted a $37,500 bonus to leave school five semesters short of a degree to sign with the Angels.<\/p>\n

Still, he hedged his bets just the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted to give me $35,000 and I said I need $37,500 because that would give me the $500 a semester [tuition] at \u2018SC that I needed,\u201d Ardell said.<\/p>\n

The newly born Angels had just two minor league teams, so Ardell was sent to the Dodgers\u2019 Class D farm club in Artesia, N.M. His manager was Spider Jorgensen, whose big league debut in 1947 had been somewhat overshadowed by teammate Jackie Robinson<\/a>, who broke baseball\u2019s color line that day. Since Jorgensen\u2019s equipment never made it to the ballpark, he played third base that day using an infielder\u2019s glove he borrowed from Robinson.<\/p>\n

The team Jorgensen managed went 48-78 and finished last, 29\u00bd games out of first in the Sophomore League \u2014 so bad that Sports Illustrated came to New Mexico to document its mediocrity. Ardell finished that first season with more strikeouts (32) than hits (30) in 125 at-bats, but he was big, left-handed and played first base \u2014 three attributes that were enough to get him a trial with an Angels team that entered September 30 games behind the league-leading Yankees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI basically played second string at \u2018SC,\u201d Ardell said. \u201cSo I go from second string to Class D ball \u2014 which wasn\u2019t as good as our \u2018SC team \u2014 to the big leagues all within 60 days. At age 20, it was an incredible roller coaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a ride he quickly tired off. He didn\u2019t drink and he was about to get married, so the frat house atmosphere of a professional baseball team wasn\u2019t one he partook of. After three more minor league seasons, he retired at 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned a lot about myself,\u201d he said of those three mostly unhappy summers.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t that he couldn\u2019t do it. It was that he didn\u2019t want to do it. Being a big league ballplayer may have been some kids\u2019 dream, but it wasn\u2019t his.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got no satisfaction out of it. And I was bored,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t that interesting to me once I had to make my living doing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t love what you\u2019re doing, if you don\u2019t appreciate and like what you\u2019re doing, it becomes hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 84, Ardell has an easy smile and a quick, self-deprecating wit he employs often. He\u2019s still at his playing weight of 190 pounds, but he says he\u2019s lost 2 inches off a frame that once rose to 6-foot-2. And he no longer moves with the speed or grace that allowed him to steal seven bases in his first minor league season.<\/p>\n

There is no memorabilia, no remnants of his short-lived career in his hillside home in Laguna Beach\u2019s Bluebird Canyon, about a half-mile from the Pacific Ocean. He gave his gloves away during a garage sale shortly after he quit playing and a grandson took down the few pictures he had hung on the wall.<\/p>\n

After retiring with a .252 average and 45 home runs in 389 minor league games, Ardell went back to college, then studied real estate, working for Union Bank and Wells Fargo. He eventually started a real estate asset management company with his twin brother Dave, an equally talented baseball player who played at UCLA, where he was the team captain.<\/p>\n

\"Dan <\/p>\n

After retiring with a .252 average and 45 home runs in 389 minor league games, Dan Ardell returned to school at USC, then studied real estate, working for Union Bank and Wells Fargo.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

That anyone remembers he played at all is both flattering and befuddling for Ardell, who receives about a dozen autograph requests in the mail each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, how do they even know my address?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Still, he answers every letter. Some fans send old photos or baseball cards that are necessarily homemade since Ardell never got a Topps bubblegum card of his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn those days anybody who signed a bonus, Topps would sign,\u201d he said. \u201cSo they came to Artesia, where I was playing, and said \u2018we want to give you a Topps card. And we\u2019ll pay you five bucks\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018I think I need 10.\u2019 So I\u2019m the only only major leaguer who never had a Topps card.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t to say Ardell has no mementos from his career. A fastball he didn\u2019t see on a poorly lit field in San Jos\u00e9 slipped under the bill of his batting helmet and struck him flush in the head one night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI woke up the next day. You could see the seam where the baseball hit. I still have a dent,\u201d he said with a chuckle, pointing to a spot in the center of his forehead.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until three decades after he walked away from the game that Ardell came to appreciate what he had accomplished \u2014 and only then after marrying Jean Hastings<\/a>, who would shortly become a nationally recognized baseball academic and writer.<\/p>\n

Ardell and Hastings \u2014 a Brooklyn native who had always been a baseball fanatic \u2014 were living in the same Orange County neighborhood when a mutual friend suggested they go out on a date.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had just read \u2018Ball Four,\u2019\u201d Ardell said, referencing Jim Bouton<\/a>\u2019s book about the raunchy, less-seemly side of baseball. \u201cSo she said no, baseball players are to look at, they\u2019re not to touch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dan <\/p>\n

Dan Ardell says he receives about a dozen autograph requests in the mail each year, with some fans sending old photos or homemade baseball cards since Ardell never got a Topps card of his own. \u201cI mean, how do they even know my address?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

She went on the date anyway, then married Ardell a couple of years later in 1981. Jean, 79, died in 2022 after a short, ferocious battle with leukemia, but in the more than 40 years she spent with Ardell, she slowly rekindled his love for a game he had all but forgotten.<\/p>\n

They went to conferences and symposiums, where Jean spoke on the magic and the poetry of baseball. They visited the Hall of Fame, traveled to Arizona for spring training and attended countless Angels games, watching on TV the ones they couldn\u2019t attend in person.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely part of her,\u201d grandson Garrett Tyler said.<\/p>\n

Jean not only helped Ardell put his baseball career into perspective, she helped put his life in perspective. Shortly after they married, \u201cI decided to have a mission statement,\u201d Ardell said. \u201cAnd my mission statement was to make a difference in the lives of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTen years later,\u201d he added \u201cI changed it to make a positive difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

He saw that desire at work in Jean, a political liberal who, in addition to her baseball writing, also worked with a nonprofit called Braver Angels that seeks to bridge the political divide by bringing Democrats and Republicans together. It was a philosophy she lived by marrying Ardell, a lifelong Republican who cast his first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater but later drove a car sporting a \u201cRepublicans for Obama\u201d bumper sticker.<\/p>\n

Ardell was already working with Opportunity International, a global nonprofit that alleviates generational poverty by microfinancing community projects both in Southern California and abroad. But now the bridge that he and Jean built became apparent through the difference being made \u2014 not only in those affected communities, but in his own soul as well.<\/p>\n

Tyler said he grew up playing catch with his grandfather, who attended all his Little League games. But it was his grandmother who told him about Ardell\u2019s professional career.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was always a little bit reluctant to talk about it. My grandma was the one that kind of opened him up,\u201d said Tyler, 25, who followed his grandparents into baseball, where he works as manager of concessions for the Amarillo Sod Poodles, the double A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve talked to him a lot about that. He told me that he just didn\u2019t have the confidence. He knew that he was good, but I don\u2019t think he really understood it. I don\u2019t 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\u2019s evolved into a different love for baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he has grown older, Tyler said that\u2019s the part of his grandfather\u2019s journey that has stuck with him; the mission statement part that says it\u2019s not about the destination or the accomplishments, but about the influence you have on those you meet along the way.<\/p>\n

In that way, he said, Ardell\u2019s short career is now having an outsized influence.<\/p>\n

Tyler mentions a friend who is basically playing for free, stranded below the longest rung of the minor league ladder. But he still puts on a uniform every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe plays for the love of the game and just because it\u2019s all he knows,\u201d Tyler said. \u201cOne of the things that Dan asks me that I ask my friend is, \u2018do you like what you\u2019re doing?\u2019 And at that point it\u2019s not about your career longevity or how much money you\u2019re making.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as you\u2019re happy playing and you\u2019re making ends meet, then go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ardell wasn\u2019t happy playing, so he walked away. Three decades later with the love and support of a wife who saw baseball not as a sport but as a metaphor for life, as a game where the goal is to get home safely, Ardell began to understand the magic, too.<\/p>\n

His one month in the majors led him to a career prosperous enough that he could help others, one that still fills his mailbox with letters from fans and one that has given him the wisdom to counsel other 23-year-olds to keep putting on the uniform as long as it fits.<\/p>\n

Make a positive difference in the lives of others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very inconsequential part of my life that was very consequential to other people,\u201d Ardell said of his one month in the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of it every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second in an occasional series of profiles on Southern California athletes who have flourished in their post-playing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":115859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2379,72668,591,72673,72671,2385,21273,72669,1910,72672,19498,72670,2252,28452,1266,16502,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-115858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-angels","9":"tag-ardell","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-career","12":"tag-big-league-season","13":"tag-day","14":"tag-difference","15":"tag-early-year","16":"tag-game","17":"tag-gold-glove","18":"tag-hit","19":"tag-jean","20":"tag-life","21":"tag-manager","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-one","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114965419405934437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}