Chick Gandil - After The Scandal and Later Years

After The Scandal and Later Years

After 1921, he continued to play semi-pro ball on the west coast. He contacted Joe Gedeon, Swede Risberg, Joe Jackson and Fred McMullin and attempted to put together a team in Southern California. In 1925, he played with Hal Chase and other banished players in the Frontier League in Douglas, Arizona. While presiding over the Douglas, Arizona team in 1927, he reportedly had team manager Buck Weaver banned from the league. It was believed that Gandil did this because he had felt betrayed by his former White Sox teammate's lack of support during the 1927 investigation of the 1917 White Sox/Tigers situation. He ended his playing career with semi-pro clubs in the copper mining towns of Bayard and Hurley, New Mexico.

After he ended his baseball career, Gandil, Laurel, and daughter Idella settled in his childhood residence (Berkeley, California). His primary occupation was as a plumber. Interestingly, his mother and father still lived in Berkeley (his father Christian died in 1941 and his mother Louise in 1952). There is no official record of contact between them. He remained in the area until he retired to Calistoga in 1954 and spent the last part of his life in the Napa Valley region of Northern California. Gandil died at age 82 on December 13, 1970, in a convalescent hospital after a long illness. He had been suffering from heart disease and emphysema, and the official cause of death was heart failure.

Gandil was survived by his wife, his daughter, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Laurel, who had been married to Gandil for 62 years, followed him in death just three months later.

Gandil is interred at St. Helena Public Cemetery.