St. Louis' Moon

Like inveterate gamblers, St. Louis ball fans keep coming back to Busch Stadium even though they are losing. The Cardinals are the only team in town, and the muggy Midwestern summer is never so dismal that it cannot be brightened by the sight of Stan Musial at the plate or the pleasure of second-guessing hard-luck Manager Eddie Stanky. For a few weeks this spring, the bleacher jockeys even got a kick out of razzing Rookie Wally Moon in the outfield. "Where's Enos?" they would yell. Did that lanky, crew-cut college boy really think he could fill in for Enos ("Country"') Slaughter?

Just about the happiest thing that has happened in St. Louis all season is that Moon has made the grade. He is filling in for Slaughter so well that the fans have almost forgiven the Cardinal management for selling old Enos to the Yankees. Unless he suddenly picks up the habit of catching fly balls on his head, Wallace Wade Moon is a sure bet to be selected National League Rookie of the Year.

Barefoot Boy. "Wally Moon," says Stanky, "is a typical Cardinal-type player"--which is another way of saying that baseball is Wally's life. From the time he was old enough to throw a ball, Wally worked out daily with his father, an unreconstructed semipro. After school, when the chores were done on the Moon farm near Bay, Ark., Wally and his father sweated over the fundamentals of baseball. When he was still a barefoot boy in blue jeans, Wally was playing Legion ball with the Jonesboro (Ark.) Juniors, and big-league scouts were already impressed with his speed and his easy skill at bat. But Wally's father thought that even a ballplayer could use a college education.

Wally went to Texas A. & M. on an athletic scholarship (he got a Master's in administrative education), and learned a lot more baseball. "I even learned how to break a batting slump," Wally remembers now. "You just widen your stance, stand flatfooted and try to hit the ball over the shortstop's head. It always works."

Someone to Cheer. Last spring, after three years in the minors, Wally showed up at the Cardinal camp in St. Petersburg, Fla., fresh from a winter of baseball in Maracaibo, Venezuela, his batting eye sharp. Manager Stanky was so impressed that he never thought of sending Wally back to the minors. But taking Slaughter's place was a tough spot. Wally kept badgering old hands like Musial and Schoendienst for advice. In the field, he made few mistakes. At the plate, he started belting out base hits steadily. His current average: .331. "Here it is August," says Second Baseman Schoendienst, "and I think I have a shot at the batting championship, but I wouldn't be surprised if Moon beats out all of us--Duke Snider and Don Mueller included."

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