By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Daniel Gerson, business man and founder of the St. Joseph Mustangs baseball team, died at age 68 Sunday at his home in Chicago.
A cause of death was not given.
Gerson, a Chicago native, spent nearly 18 years as a commodity trader at the Chicago Board of Trade.
He retired from trading and moved to Kansas City, where he raised his family and coached baseball teams for his sons, Tyler and Luke.
Gerson loved baseball his whole life. He played at Tulane as a walk-on and was a big Chicago White Sox fan.
Gerson founded the St. Joseph Mustangs in 2008 with the team beginning play in 2009 at Phil Welch Stadium.
"He saw the opportunity and fell in love," said Mustangs owner and president Ky Turner on Gerson's vision of the team. "If you know Dan, he didn't just jump in, not knowing anything about it. He did his research on the people, the community, the ballpark, the history. He knew what he was walking into and he identified this as a place he wanted to associate himself with."
Under Gerson’s ownership, the team won seven MINK League Championships.
Gerson sold the Mustangs to Turner in December 2021. Turner had worked for Gerson since the team’s beginning in 2009.
"He walked me through a lot of stuff and exposed me to the business side of things," Turner said. "He kind of prepared me. It was like training for a couple of years so I would be ready for stuff like that. He didn't have to do that. (Gerson) said when he sold the team - he wanted me to do that and he told me the exact same thing before selling the team - 'I want you to do this.'"
Gerson moved back to Chicago most recently with his girlfriend Natalie Nedblake, who spent many years by Dan’s side.
Gerson bought a small restaurant in Independence in 1997, turning it into the original Big Biscuit.
Since then, a number of Big Biscuit restaurants opened across the Midwest. Gerson also had ownership in Union Broadcasting, which operates Sports Radio 810 in Kansas City.
Gerson also had a passion for animals and made a number of donations to the St. Joseph Animal Shelter. He donated thousands of Mustangs tickets to the St. Joseph community, as well making financial donations to students for various causes.
Gerson also founded the St. Joseph Baseball Hall of Fame, and was always on hand to congratulate those who were inducted each year.
In Gerson's memory, the Mustangs are encouraging people to make a donation of any size to the St. Joseph Animal Shelter in his name.
The Mustangs will match up to $2009, in honor of the year that the Mustangs began play under Gerson.
"When it comes to the animal shelter, he just said such a soft spot for dogs," Turner said of Gerson. "It made sense for us to identity that. Of course with 2009 (the first Mustangs season), it seemed like a good fit."
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