Danny Gardella
February 19, 1946, 80 years ago: Danny Gardella, an outfielder for the New York Giants, becomes the 1st Major League Baseball player to announce he is "jumping" to the Mexican League.
It is considered an "outlaw" league because, unlike the American League, the National League, and most of North America's minor leagues, it is not under the control of MLB and its Commissioner. The Commissioner is controlled by the MLB team owners. And if there is one thing a major league sports team owner values more than money, it is control.
Jorge Pasquel was the man infringing on their control. He and his brothers began their fortune with a cigar factory in the port city of Veracruz. Jorge and Bernardo Pasquel had the ML's Azules de Veracruz -- in English, the Veracruz Blues -- and minority ownership of some other teams among their assets.
In 1943, knowing that the ML had no "color line" like the American majors did -- given the racial makeup of Mexico, such a ban would have been both hypocritical and nearly impossible to enforce -- he signed several players away from the Negro Leagues, and some found success in the ML. Among them was Monte Irvin, a future Hall-of-Famer, who said it was the best decision he made in baseball, and that he had never felt so free.
With World War II having ended, Pasquel began to offer high salaries to bring major league talent over to the Mexican League. He may have been driven by nationalism, and by a dislike for American imperialism, possibly spurred by the U.S. invasion of his hometown in 1914, when he was a child. (The year 1946 having been the 100th Anniversary of the start of the Mexican-American War also might have had something to do with it.) Pasquel further aided his family's fortune later in 1946, by getting his cousin, Miguel Alemán Valdés, elected President of Mexico.
A total of 22 players, including 8 Giants, moved to the Mexican League, becoming known as "the Mexican Jumping Beans." Commissioner Albert B. "Happy" Chandler banned all 22 players for life. In addition to Gardella, they included Mickey Owen, the catcher whose dropped 3rd strike cost the Brooklyn Dodgers Game 4 of the 1941 World Series; and Sal Maglie, a Giants pitcher who would go on to become the best-known of these players.
But Pasquel's plan didn't last long. Owen quickly returned to the U.S., citing poor playing conditions. A long legal battle ensued, after which Owen was determined to owe Pasquel $35,000 for breach of contract. The league took large financial losses in 1947.
In 1948, Gardella filed a lawsuit against Chandler, and the League Presidents, Ford Frick of the NL and Will Harridge of the AL. He charged that they were engaged in interstate commerce, because the defendants had made contracts with radio broadcasting and television companies that sent narratives or moving pictures of the games across state lines.
This suit hit the team owners where it really hurt: Their money and their sense of control. If Gardella won his case, not only would it mean the end of the reserve clause, which would force them to pay much higher salaries than they wanted, but it would mean the end of their special antitrust exemption that had been granted in 1922, as fallout from their 1914-15 battle with the Federal League.
The team owners decided to save the reserve clause, save the antitrust exemption, and save face. They settled the case, offering all of the Jumping Beans amnesty. Their suspensions were ended, and all were free to return -- to the teams which had held their rights before they jumped.
Gardella and Owen barely played in the majors afterward, both having been traded by their teams. Both lived until 2005. The most successful returnee was Maglie, who became the Giants' ace, a key figure in their winning Pennants in 1951 and 1954. Knowing for having one of the best curveballs in the game, and nicknamed "Sal the Barber" because he threw close to batters' heads, giving them "a close shave," he went 119-62 in the major leagues, despite not becoming a regular starter there until he was 33. Had he not taken 2 years off to work in a defense plant during World War II (a sinus issue made him 4-F), and lost 4 years in the ML, he could have approached Hall-of-Fame-worthy career statistics. He lived until 1992.
Sal Maglie
Jorge Pasquel wasn't so lucky. Although his cousin the President enabled him and his brother Bernardo to make a great deal of money in the Mexican oil industry, the brothers lost a sizeable chunk of change in baseball. They sold their teams in 1952, but maintained ownership of Mexico City's largest ballpark, Parque Deportivo del Seguro Social (Social Security Sports Park), taking in rent from the teams' new owners. Jorge was killed in a plane crash in 1955. He was only 48 years old.
Founded in 1925, the Mexican League reached an agreement with MLB in 1955, becoming an official Class AA league. In 1967, it was promoted to Class AAA. Today, it has 20 teams, 10 each in a North Division and a South Division. The Diablos Rojos del México -- the Mexico City Red Devils, formerly simply the Mexico City Reds -- have won the most titles, 18 Pennants, including in 2024 and 2025.
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