Cosmopolitan…HOOO!!!
On Friday, as I was driving home from work, I heard on the radio that Danny Gans had died earlier that morning. For many of you, you won’t recognize that name. But if you live in Las Vegas or had visited Vegas in the last ten years or so, than you will recognize that name.
But for me, I recognized Danny at the start of every baseball season whenever I popped in my worn out VHS tape of “Bull Durham”. Danny played the third baseman in that movie. He was also one of the guys that ran around that hose soaked field of that same movie.
I never got to see Danny Gans perform live. His show was sold out the weekend my wife and I were visiting my brother so we went to go see STOMP instead. It was a good show but I REALLY wanted to see Danny.
I mention all of this because Danny was a minor league ballplayer. From what I have read about him, he got his start in Vegas while he was playing for the Triple-A baseball team out there. After games, the local TV crew would interview him where he would do various impressions. Eventually, those skills took him to Broadway and then eventually back to Vegas. But it was his baseball skills that won him the job of the third baseman for the Bulls in that movie.
I often point out Bull Durham to many of my friends as being the BEST baseball movie ever filmed – mainly because it was the best PLAYED baseball movie ever filmed. What I mean by that is a great many of the guys that were Bulls in that movie actually played the game at a very high level – either college or minor leagues. And, of course, the director himself was a minor league baseball player too so that helped a great deal.
In any case, my obsession with “Bull Durham” and the fact that my brother lives in Vegas always kept Danny Gans somewhere in the recesses of my brain – so when I heard he had died, I was very much taken aback.
In any case, I just thought I’d write about someone that maybe wasn’t a super star in the way that we are accustomed to – although he WAS a huge star IN Vegas. His sold out shows attest to that. In any case, it’s very sad for me to hear that I will never get the chance to see him perform.
But at least he’ll live forever in “Bull Durham” playing third base and running around that muddy, hose soaked field with Kevin Costner.
Rest in peace, Danny Gans.
-Chris
