Former Texas A&M, MLB star Wally Moon dies at 87

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COLLEGE STATION – Wally Moon, a former Texas A&M baseball standout and a 12-year veteran of the major leagues, has passed away, according to Gabe Bock of TexAgs.com. He was 87.

The Wally Moon Award in the A&M baseball program is named for the former St. Louis Cardinal and Los Angeles Dodger who won three World Series titles with the Dodgers, and was the 1954 National League Rookie of the Year with the Cardinals.

The A&M award is given annually to the player showing the most improvement from the fall to the end of the season. Moon, an Arkansas native who also played basketball for the Aggies, became legendary for his “moon shots,” after big-league teammate Stan Musial urged him to hit the ball to the opposite field as a left-handed hitter, and into the close grandstands in left field at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

When Moon played for the Aggies in 1949 and 1950, A&M’s baseball field was next to football’s Kyle Field.

“I hit one from the baseball field onto the Kyle Field track in 1949,” Moon told TexAgs Radio in 2011. “Coach Anderson, the track coach, retrieved it for me. I still have that baseball. It was a monstrous home run, and lots of people still talk about it. It was high, and I would classify that as my first 'moon shot.'”

Moon lived in Bryan in a retirement community late in life. He and his late wife, Bettye, had five children.