Almost 50 years ago, I was in high school with Joe Moeller. He is not a household name, but he might have been, had he gotten better guidance from adults. I want to talk about this.
He was the youngest pitcher ever brought up from the minors by the Dodgers. He was signed in 1960, immediately after high school. They brought him up in 1961. He was 19 years old.
He was a year behind me in high school. His older brother Gary was in my class. But anyone who followed sports on campus knew who Joe was. He was a great baseball pitcher, probably the best high school pitcher in Southern California in 1960, the year after I graduated. The team wasn't great, but he surely was.
What none of us knew was that he had been a national champion in archery.
Before Joe picked up a baseball glove, his father pushed him into archery. At six, he won the state championship in Illinois, where he spent his earliest years. The family -- dressed in Western attire -- performed a vaudeville routine in rodeos and sports shows, with Papa Joe firing at balloons William Tell-style, and the rest of the family shooting bows and arrows.Joe was forced to practice archery every afternoon until dark under his father's watchful eye starting at a young age. "I hated archery," Joe admits.
One day he got up the courage to ask his father an audacious question. "If I win the national championship, can I stop shooting archery?"
Dad thought about it and finally agreed, so young Moeller practiced intensely every day. "There was a focus and a concentration that helped me later on," he notes. He won the national junior title at the U.S. Nationals held in Sacramento and never touched a bow and arrow again.
He hated archery so much, that he became the best in the country in order to get it out of his life. That is dedication. I'm not exactly sure what it's dedication to.
His father continued to push him.
Not letting Joe rest on his laurels, dad wanted to know what his son's next challenge would be. "I want to play in the major leagues some day," he replied confidently, not knowing what might lie ahead.With German roots, both parents were old-school disciplinarians. Dad was driven -- he expected a 100 percent effort for everything. "Dad would tell me he never wanted me to look back and wish I'd worked a little harder. That will haunt you the rest of your life, he said."
"He was not abusive, but if I looked at him wrong I'd get decked."
Ultimately, Joe realizes his father gave him the tools to succeed at a very high level. "It was a coach-son relationship," Joe says. "I give him credit for building into me what it takes to become a professional athlete. Other guys didn't understand what it takes to get to that next level."
At the age of 12, he was 6 feet tall. He was throwing shutouts for his Little League team. He was signed by Walter O'Malley immediately after his high school graduation. O'Malley had recently brought the Dodgers to Los Angeles.
A lot of teams wanted him.
Detroit offered a $90,000 signing bonus. The Chicago Cubs offered $95,000. These were astronomical numbers for a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. "We weren't really poor, but we ate eggplant for a week at a time," Joe recalls.Ultimately, the Dodgers won the bidding war through O'Malley's shrewd style. "Walter was a brilliant man," Joe says. "I was a Dodgers fan going back to Brooklyn," which sealed the deal. Joe received $65,000; his brother Gary got $15,000, and Papa Joe got $10,000, in a deal structured to please everyone in the family and lighten the tax burden.
"I couldn't turn it down," Joe says. "It was my dream. Out of a half million kids who plays Little League, only one makes it to the Major Leagues."
In his first season, Joe played in the minors for Reno, Greenville, and Spokane, where he won 20 games and struck out 295 batters. It was said that his curve ball was "as wicked as Sandy Koufax's."
Note: $90,000 was over $700,000 in today's money. In 1960, a bonus like that was rare.
He was brought up from the minors in 1961. That was when the bad advice began.
During Spring training, Dodger coach Joe Becker convinced Moeller he was throwing his curve ball incorrectly and told him to change his motion. "I was so young and eager to learn that if he told me to throw it between my legs I would have done it," Joe recalls."Becker told me to throw the ball like Phil Ortega, but Ortega had one of the worst curve balls in our system," he notes. "It didn't make sense, but I was 18 and I thought if he told me to change it I couldn't refuse."
While Moeller was one of the hardest throwing pitchers on the Dodgers, his inability to recover his curve ball dogged him the remainder of his career. "I never really regained it," he admits. "Why I couldn't find it again I don't know."
There were other problems. Highly successful men, who should have known better, acted terribly.
There were resentments from some players because of his signing bonus. Players and reporters began to refer to him as the "bonus baby.""The bonus I got was more money than they made in three or four years," he notes. Until they held out for more money in 1966, stars such as Koufax and Drysdale were only making $35,000 a year.
Dodger coach Leo Durocher, known as 'Leo the Lip,' was unmerciful to the newest youngster on the team. "Durocher absolutely hammered me all the time," Moeller recalls. With reporters standing around, he would call out to Joe: "Hey kid, want to go out for some drinks after the game? Oh, I forgot, you can only drink milk shakes."
Durocher became famous for uttering the line, "Nice guys finish last." Moeller's nice-guy image -- full of sincerity and humility, seemed to grate on Durocher. "He didn't like the fact that I was there. When there was a team party on the road, I was never invited."
One day Tommy Davis pulled Durocher aside and told him to "lay off the kid." Ironically, it was the black players on the team who befriended Moeller. "Four or five of the black players always invited me to hang out with them. Maury Wills would always play his banjo."
"I couldn't figure out why, but all of a sudden Durocher laid off me." Years later, he learned that Davis intervened on his behalf and Moeller called to thank him.
It got worse.
In the 1962 season, Davis had his break-out year, batting .346, as the team finished the regular schedule tied for first place with the San Francisco Giants. Moeller had six wins and five losses after pitching a total of 100 innings.A team meeting was held to divide year-end bonuses between the players. "When my name came up, center fielder Duke Snider said, "He doesn't need it. He already got a big bonus." Moeller was voted a one-half share -- modestly above the amount given to the batboys.
He did not drink. He did not carouse. He was married to his high school sweetheart. He was a straight arrow. This caused him trouble. "They thought I was a goody two-shoes because I didn't drink, I didn't do anything, so that ticked them off."
After his first few seasons, Moeller ultimately gave in to peer pressure. He thought he needed to try some of the extracurricular activities of the other players to be accepted. Every night when they were on the road, players would find their way to the nearest bar -- usually known hangouts that attracted a raft of beautiful women. . . ."It amazed me how some guys in the bullpen would arrive at the ballpark. I would be getting up for breakfast and they would just be coming in. I wondered how they could even walk straight. Yet some were outstanding pitchers."
He did not have a spectacular career, but he had a better career than most boys ever dream of. "His best years with the Dodgers were 1964 and 1970. He won seven games in both seasons. Over the course of his career, he had 26 wins and 36 losses, had a 4.01 ERA average, with 307 strikeouts.
Then he had more bad advice. It came from the physicians.
Later, injuries began to take their toll on Moeller's arm, which affected the speed of his pitches. "I knew if I had a sore arm, someone else would take my place," he says. "If I got injured, I didn't tell anyone about it. I would go to a doctor and get a cortisone shot. I would go back to the club and they would give me another one." He estimates he had at least 60 cortisone shots in his throwing arm, which turned the inside of his arm into "mush."
He played for ten years, 1961-1971.
Today, he is a scout with the Florida Marlins. He still loves baseball. His grandson is a 6' 11" basketball starter with Florida Gulf Coast University.
YOUTHFUL TRUST
When you're young, you are tempted to take advice that adults give you. That's what he did with respect to his curveball. He entered into an adult's world with adult responsibilities, since he was married. But he was treated shabbily by his teammates. There is no excuse for this. It was basically envy. It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't as though they could get a piece of his bonus. It was envy: the desire to pull him down. If it had led to real resentment, he might have done a worse job as a player. The team would have lost more games. But the players didn't care. They resented the fact that he been given the bonus.
Envy is something that talented people can face all their lives, but when they are talented at a young age, it hurts a lot worse. They are brought into the adults' world, and they are surrounded by bad examples. He survived it, but if he had been given better advice earlier, especially with respect to his curveball, he might have been a major star. He was on a team with great pitchers. Koufax and Drysdale were at the top of their game. It was tough for him to break into the rotation. That tempted him to play when he was injured. He should have been advised not play under those conditions. Cortisone is a killer.
For those of us who get good advice early, it is a tremendous advantage. That was the case in my career. I do not remember ever being the victim of envy. If I was, I have forgotten it.
This is a reminder. If you spot a young talent, you can make a difference by giving two things: good advice and encouragement. If you are not sure about the advice, at least give encouragement. Let the youngster know that he is part of a larger team. He will almost always perform better as a result.
Today, Moeller gives guidance to troubled kids.
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