First Gloves: Wally Moon

Certain names were just meant to be famous.

I say this as someone with a distinctly boring name. Had the original clan arrived from Ireland 200 years ago and kept the Gaelic version, O’Banion, I wouldn’t be in the same situation. Paul O’Banion sounds pretty good. It’s distinctive, and it has the added benefit of not already being used by a completely different baseball writer who edited Baseball Weekly for decades and is therefore way more well-known than I am.

Alas, that’s not the path my forefathers followed, and so I’m Paul Boring Name instead. It’s okay most days. It keeps me from having to spell it out for folks usually, and for those who can’t understand me and ask for a spelling anyway, I can always say “Just like the color.” And yes, there have been some rare occasions when I say that and the person and asks me to spell it anyway. I always know it’s going to be a rough phone call when that happens.

Anyway, that’s not a problem Wally Moon had. Blessed with a distinctive name, hardworking parents, a strong faith in the Lord, and enough brains to get a scholarship to Texas A&M, Moon had more options than you’d expect for a kid who grew up on an Arkansas cotton farm that didn’t have indoor plumbing.