“Moon Threatens Record Book” blared the United Press International headline that appeared in newspapers across the country on April 26, 1961. The subject of the article was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ left-handed-hitting outfielder Wally Moon, who began the season with eight home runs in his first 12 games. Pundits predicted that 1961 would be the year that Babe Ruth’s single-season record of 60 home runs would fall, due to Major League Baseball expanding from 16 to 18 teams, thus watering down the pitching talent throughout baseball. UPI’s enthusiasm over Moon’s chances was premature; as every serious fan knows, it would be Roger Maris who broke the Babe’s cherished record. Then again, who could blame the folks at UPI? Moon, who hit seven of those eight home runs in the Los Angeles Coliseum, seemed to have perfected the art of hitting home runs there.
He Wanted to Play with Slaughter
Wallace Wade Moon was named after Wallace Wade, who was the head football coach at the University of Alabama when Moon was born on April 3, 1930. When Moon was a teenager, a string of baseball scouts came knocking on his door. For his family, however, education was more important than athletics, and Moon’s parents insisted he accept a combined baseball and basketball scholarship at Texas A&M. He graduated with a mathematics degree and worked as a geometry teacher.
When the scouts kept coming in 1950, Moon’s father, Bert, insisted that, along with their contract offers, they also bring complete rosters of the major league and minor league teams. The plan was to choose the team with aging outfielders at the major-league level and not much minor league depth at the position, hopefully giving Moon the fastest ascension to the big leagues and the longest staying power. Bert told Baseball Digest that the best offer came from the Detroit Tigers, but they chose the St. Louis Cardinals because Sportsman’s Park’s dimensions favored left-handed hitters and their outfielders were in the twilight of their careers. Moon told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he picked the Cardinals because they were his favorite team and he wanted to play alongside Enos Slaughter.
From 1950-53, Moon hit .286 with 29 home runs in the Cardinals minor league system. In the spring of 1954, Moon was to report to the Cardinals’ minor league camp in Deland, Florida. Through a mix-up, he was mistakenly sent to the major league camp in St. Petersburg. Manager Eddie Stanky was impressed with Moon’s workout and told him to stay for a while and later to stay for the duration. Moon made the big club with a strong spring performance. Ironically, St. Louis traded Slaughter to the New York Yankees to make room for Moon in the lineup. Moon hit a home run off Chicago Cubs pitcher Paul Minner in his first major league plate appearance. He went on to hit .304/.371/.435, 12 HR, 76 RBI, and 110 OPS+ in 1954, and was voted the National League Rookie of the Year over future Hall-of-Famers Henry Aaron and Ernie Banks. By the end of the 1957 season, Moon had compiled a career slash line of .298/.369/.465 with an OPS+ of 121 in four years for St. Louis.
Another Polo Grounds?
When the Dodgers left Brooklyn for Los Angeles after the 1957 season, the plan was to play home games in the Rose Bowl until a stadium was constructed in Chavez Ravine. However, negotiations with Pasadena fell through. The Dodgers then made arrangements with the Los Angeles Coliseum, the cozy football home of the Los Angeles Rams, UCLA, and USC. Because of conflicts with the football occupants, the entire 1958 NL schedule had to be scrapped and redone in late January.
The Coliseum was built for football, and only football. Squeezing a baseball field into its dimensions was a tricky prospect. The left field fence was only 250 feet from home plate. Even with a portable fence in place, it was 425 feet to center and 440 feet to right-center, although it was 300 feet down the right field foul line. The caption under an Associated Press photograph of the layout read, “Another Polo Grounds?” The Dodgers erected a 42-foot screen on top of the left field to eliminate cheap home runs. Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe expressed his concern about the short distances down the lines to columnist Red Smith. Similar complaints were registered by opposing pitchers Johnny Antonelli and Warren Spahn. Dodgers vice president Buzzie Bavasi wasn’t interested in their laments. After throwing a few barbs Antonelli and Spahn’s way, Bavasi told AP, “It may just turn out to be a pitcher’s paradise. How can these guys complain when they haven’t even seen the layout?”
As it happened, 193 home runs (92 by the Dodgers) were hit in the Coliseum in 1958, the most in the majors. Still, some believed the dimensions hurt the Dodgers, who finished seventh in the NL with a 71-83 record. Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Bob Friend told Lester J. Biederman of The Pittsburgh Press, “It’s not that the team is so bad but that the Coliseum makes the Dodgers so powerless. So many of the Dodgers have their best power to left-center and right-center but in the Coliseum, these long shots are long outs.”
Applied Mathematics
Meanwhile, in 1958, Moon suffered an elbow injury that limited him to 108 games and hurt his effectiveness. He hit just .238/.342/.366, 7 HR, 38 RBI, and 84 OPS+ that year. After the season, the Cardinals traded Moon and pitcher Phil Paine to the Dodgers for Gino Cimoli. The Dodgers now had an answer for those long outs in the cavernous Coliseum.
Moon put his geometry training to work and, using “applied mathematics,” created what he called a “reverse-english” swing, which was an inside-out, uppercut swing designed to lift the ball to the opposite field and over the left field screen at the Coliseum. Pitchers pitched him inside, the normal course of action when trying to prevent a hitter from “going oppo,” but Moon found it easier to apply his swing to the inside pitch. Aiming at the screen, in 1959, he hit 302/.394/.495, 19 HR, 74 RBI, 129 OPS+, and a major-league-leading 11 triples while accumulating 5.5 WAR. Fourteen of those homers, and eight of those triples, were hit at home. His home runs were derisively called “screenos,” but the term “moon shots” caught on, thanks to Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully. Whether Scully originated the term, or simply popularized it, is unclear.
“Nothing Cheap About Them”
Moon didn’t care for the suggestion that they were cheap home runs. “They don’t just jump over the screen,” he told legendary sportswriter Jerome Holtzman, writing for Baseball Digest. “You’ve got to hit the ball with good power.” Dodgers coach Leo Durocher agreed. “There’s nothing cheap about them,” he said. “If it’s so easy then why don’t other left-handed hitters try to adjust and take the same advantage of the screen?” (A counterpoint to Durocher’s argument is that it wouldn’t make sense for an opposing hitter to adjust his swing for the handful of games he’d play at the Coliseum.)
The 1959 Dodgers improved to 88-68 and won the World Series over the Chicago White Sox in six games. Moon was 6-for-23 with a home run in the Series. He was named an All-Star for the second time in his career and was voted UPI’s Comeback Player of the Year at the end of the season. Additionally, he finished fourth in voting for the National League Most Valuable Player Award, higher than any other Dodger.
Moon continued to perform well while the Dodgers played in the Coliseum. He won a Gold Glove Award in 1960. He didn’t maintain the frantic home run pace with which he began 1961, but that was his finest season in the majors, as he hit .328/.434/.505, 17 HR, 88 RBI, and 147 OPS+ while again receiving MVP consideration. Moon hit only three home runs on the road that season.
A Career Winds Down
Age and a move to pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium in 1962 would limit Moon’s effectiveness and eventually relegate him to a reserve role. Across 1962-65, he hit .243/.327/.344 with just 15 home runs and 99 RBI. He earned two more World Series rings with the Dodgers in 1963 and 1965, but he didn’t appear in the 1963 Series and made just two unsuccessful plate appearances in the 1965 Series, after which he retired as a player. Moon didn’t spend retirement standing still, getting involved in political campaigns in his native Arkansas, among other pursuits. He died in 2018 at the age of 87.
