"I'm So Happy"

All season a shadow named Danny Gardella had hung over organized baseball. Danny, a New York Giant outfielder of mediocre talents, who had beetled off to join the ill-fated Mexican League in 1946, was suing baseball for $300,000--and challenging the whole system of "reserve clause" contracts which can bind a ballplayer to one club for his entire career (TIME, Feb. 21). Fortnight ago, while the World Series was going full blast, organized baseball quietly talked Danny into dropping his suit.

The announcement in World Series week that Danny was back in the fold, and had signed with the St. Louis Cardinals for $5,000 a year, caused little flurry. But last week, with the series over and Gardella asserting loudly that "there was no cash settlement," sportwriters began speculating about what kind of a settlement baseball might have made with Danny and his lawyers. The guesses ranged up to $50,000.

There was no formal evidence that baseball was making any fundamental change in the form of its contracts, which Danny had characterized as "slavery" and a violation of the antitrust laws. Commissioner Albert B. ("Happy") Chandler seemed satisfied that the shadow had lifted for the time being. "I'm so happy about it," said Chandler, "I'd go out and get drunk, if I were a drinking man."

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