Looking Back: Charley Moran Was An MLB Umpire
Moran played football at the University of Tennessee in 1897, but left after one year to play and coach football at Bethel College. And for one season, Moran was an assistant football coach to Pop Warner at the famous Carlisle Indian School. Moran also pitched baseball in the Southern Association with Little Rock and Chattanooga in 1902. The St. Louis Cardinals added him to their roster in 1903.
As a Cardinal pitcher, Moran only appeared in three games, starting two, and had an 0-1 record. Moran appeared in 24 innings, completing two games, but recorded a 5.25 ERA. He walked 19 batters and gave up 30 hits. Mysteriously his arm went dead and his pitching career was over.
The determined Moran was back in the minors trying to succeed as a catcher. Moran played in the Texas League for Dallas, Corsicana, Waco and Cleburne. While in Dallas in 1903-04, Moran was the team manager. He was part of the Cleburne team that won the 1906 league championship.
The Cardinals gave him another attempt in 1908 at the major league level behind the plate. That season he appeared in 21 games while batting .175 (11-for-63), no home runs and two RBI's. That was Moran's last season in the big leagues as he bounced around the minor leagues for several more years. Moran's last season in baseball came in 1914 in Montgomery.
But football was very much in Moran's life. While he played baseball in the summer, Moran was a football coach in the fall. Moran was head football coach at Texas A&M from 1909-14. In his six years coaching the Aggies, Moran recorded a 38-8-4 record, the university's best winning percentage at that time.
In 1915, Moran became an umpire in the Southern Association. Moran was so good; the National League hired him as an umpire the next season. While continuing as an NL umpire, Moran also coached football at Centre College (1919-23), Bucknell (1924-26) and Catawba (1930-33). Moran's career coaching record was 122-33-12. His 1921 Centre team defeated Harvard, 6-0 that was one of college football's greatest upsets.
Moran was a co-coach in the fairly new National Football League in 1927 for the Frankford Yellow Jackets. He left the team after one season and a 6-9-3 record. Moran's son, Tom, played for the New York football Giants in 1925.
Moran was an NL umpire for 23 seasons. He was known as "Uncle Charley" and participated in four World Series (1927, 1929, 1933, and 1938). Moran made baseball history in 1933 when he ejected one of the first players in a World Series game.
Washington outfielder, Heinie Manush, was called out during a play in Game Four against the New York Giants. Manush pulled on Moran's bow tie, which was held in place by an elastic band, and let it snap back.
Moran was famous for the saying, "It may look foul and it may look fair, but it ain't nothing until I call it!"
This story involving Moran is from an article dated May 8, 1918:
"Charley Moran, who is just in the sprouting stage of umpiring in the NL, was the guest of honor at a mobbing party up at the Polo Grounds. The Phillies started the riot when Moran called Meusel out at the plate in the ninth inning of a game which went to the Giants by a score of 3-2.
"The Phillies had launched a rally in the ninth which threatened to result in the unheard of calamity of a Giant defeat. The decision in question prevented the Phils from tying the score, so they rose to great heights of tempestuous fury. A bunch of Phillies, which included Stock, Eddie Burns, Bancroft and Pat Moran, rushed at the umpire when he called Meusel out and jostled him about so roughly that the umpire squared off, put up his fists and stared to hit straight from the shoulder.
"When the belligerent Phillies and umpire Moran were becoming nicely churned into maelstrom of trouble, elbowing their way into the fray came managers Pat Moran and McGraw. They got in front of the umpire and stood like heroes, ready to take any blows intended for that person. When it comes to umpires, McGraw is either for 'em of against 'em. He is never neutral. McGraw and Pat Moran did little shoving and all the infuriated Phillies, who were screaming for a pound of flesh, were turned about and headed toward the bench.
"A flock of hot-headed fans took up the battle when the baseball players had decided to let the umpire live, and as the cause of the trouble was making his way back under the grandstand to the umpire's dressing room, one man was so angry that he hurled a perfectly good cane at the ump, and didn't get it back, either."
Moran died in 1949 on his farm in Horse Cave, Kentucky. He was a famous umpire in his time and lived by the philosophy, "If you umpire a game without calling attention to yourself, you've had a good day. The public never notices you until it thinks you've called one wrong."
NOTE: This is the last "Looking Back" story for this season.
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