MLB history: Forgotten stars of the current NL West teams
By Rick Soisson
Forgotten MLB stars of the current NL West teams: Wally Moon, Dodgers
Wally Moon, a strong, thin native of Bay, AR, broke into MLB play with a splash, as the 1954 Rookie of the Year with the St. Louis Cardinals. He beat out a couple of guys named Ernie Banks and Henry Aaron.
A left-handed hitter with good speed and judgment at the plate, he hit .304, amassing 193 hits, 76 RBI, and 18 stolen bases. Playing largely in center field, he was a slightly better than average NL outfielder.
By the time he was traded to Los Angeles for the Dodgers’ second season on the West Coast, though, he had been turned into an outfielder-first baseman, bouncing around four positions in total. The Dodgers sent St. Louis Gino Cimoli for Moon and pitcher Phil Paine.
That second season in LA turned out to be a memorable one for the Dodgers, and yet another knife in the back to fans abandoned in Brooklyn. That knife resulted from the team’s success – so far from Ebbets Field.
And 1959 was a year Moon surely felt he needed to prove something. He had injured an arm in a collision in the outfield the previous year, and as a result, his batting average fell to .238 after an aggregate .298 showing in his first four years. Additionally, Dodgers VP Fresco Thompson said of the deal, “Moon’s got 80 percent ability but gives you 90. Cimoli’s got 90 percent ability but gives you 75.”
Moon had to think, “No pressure. You were the Rookie of the Year, and some guy you never heard of thinks Gino Cimoli has more native ability than you.”
He came out of the gates quickly, with six multi-hit games in April, and finished that month batting .352, playing every inning of every game he started in left field.
As the season progressed, he bounced back and forth across the .300 BA mark and ended the season at .302, his fifth of seven career seasons above .295.
Correction: Moon finished the regular season at .300 on the nose, but the Dodgers were tied by the Braves at 88-68, necessitating a three-game playoff.
Only two contests were needed. In the first, a Dodgers 3-2 win, he was 1-for-4; in the second, a 12-inning affair, he was 3-for-6, drove in a run and scored one, as his team advanced to the World Series with a 6-5 victory to face the “Go-Go Sox” from Chicago’s South Side. With the ten additional ABs, Moon’s average rose to .302 for the year.
In the series, he hit .261 in 25 PAs, and the Dodgers took the world title, 4-2.
Wally Moon was selected to two All-Star games with the Dodgers, appeared in three games overall, eventually won a Gold Glove (1960), and appeared briefly in the ’65 World Series, winning another ring.