As a Milwaukee teenager, he caught Willie Mays' last HR in a big league park

Fittingly, Carl Moesche had to grab the basket to get the ball back on June 29, 1975.

He had leaned into the row in front of him, sitting in the left field bleachers at Milwaukee County Stadium, and in the commotion he wasn’t even sure he had the ball until it landed on his seat and looks into his glove.

He knows it’s cheesy, but he swears — even as a 16-year-old sophomore at Nicolet High School — that it sparked an epiphany.

“I knew at that point that my life was going to be about working in baseball,” said Moesche, who – of course – has been a Major League Baseball scout for decades. “It was a moment in my life…I was supposed to be at that Old Timers game because Willie Mays was going to be there.”

When his buddy and Nicolet High School baseball teammate, David Wade, called Moesche earlier in the day to ask if he wanted to go to the Brewers game, Moesche said he didn’t. was not immediately motivated. But Wade knew something that would surely tempt Moesche; Mays and several other former greats would be on hand for an Old Timers game just before the Brewers played Cleveland.

Mays was Moesche’s favorite player.

“We went to the bleachers frequently in the early years in Milwaukee,” Wade recalled, adding that they had home runs hit by Yankees players Bucky Dent and Reggie Jackson. “As Willie came up to bat in the Old Timers game, I said to Carl, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you caught Willie’s home run?’ On the next pitch, Mays hit a long home run into the left field bleachers, straight to Carl.

Mays had only been out of baseball for two years, and at age 44 he still had something left in the tank when he faced off against fellow Hall of Famer Early Wynn. This wouldn’t be Moesche’s last intersection with the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Today, he works for the Boston Red Sox and has the 2018 World Series ring to prove it.

Mays died last week at the age of 93, and Moesche was among those who felt the sadness of the moment.

“Willie was always my favorite guy,” Moesche said. “When I first started playing, I was an outfielder, and I just remember that he was also the reason I made the catches for the basket. Catching them at the waist instead of above my head. “

Including one in the stands.

Alumni Game in Milwaukee Gives Fans One Last Look at the Say Hey Kid

The Brewers were set to host the 1975 All-Star Game two weeks later, and the Old Timers Game was intended to commemorate the previous All-Star showcase in Milwaukee, in 1955. It lasted only three innings and preceded the game of the Brewers afternoon.

Hank Aaron, still an active player with the Milwaukee Brewers, was also invited to participate, wearing a Braves uniform. Current Brewers manager and former Braves star catcher Del Crandall also competed.

Another participant: Brewers manager Harvey Kuenn, a West Allis native and Rookie of the Year with the Detroit Tigers who later became manager of the Brewers during the 1982 World Series run. He was playing that day for the American League. Fellow former Braves Gene Conley, Johnny Logan and Eddie Mathews were in attendance, while former Braves manager Fred Haney oversaw the National League team. Former Braves player Frank Thomas was also at the showcase, wearing the Pittsburgh jersey he wore in 1955.

Other legends in attendance were Ernie Banks, Robin Roberts, Harvey Haddix (who once pitched a legendary 12 perfect innings before losing the game at County Stadium), Larry Doby and Wynn.

That game started at 1 p.m. and the Brewers faced off at 2 p.m. against Cleveland, a thrilling 4-3 victory that ended when Bobby Mitchell’s sacrifice fly scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. Moesche said he doesn’t even remember the details of that game, but he certainly remembers Mays’ three-run homer that helped the NL win its miniature game, 4-0.

Mays was grinning from ear to ear as he rounded the bases. Later, he would be single and achieve a beautiful one-handed catch.

“When they talk about the 1955 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, they always talk about the home run that (Stan) Musial hit in the 12th inning to win it,” said Leo Durocher, who managed the National League in 1955, speaking to reporters two weeks later at the 1975 All-Star Game in Milwaukee. “But as far as I’m concerned, Mays should get just as much credit. Mays saved the game. Ted Williams hit a ball – well, it had a home run written on it, and Mays made that catch running and jumping. The kind only Willie Mays could do. He’s simply the best baseball player I’ve ever seen.

Moesche kept baseball – literally and conceptually – in his life afterward

Today, Moesche is a regional scouting supervisor for the Boston Red Sox and lives in Portland, Oregon. He has indeed played baseball for almost all of the five decades since, currently traveling around the country observing amateur showcases as his team prepares for the 2024 MLB Draft in July.

Yes, he still has the baseball that Willie Mays hit in 1975.

Moesche was on the roster when Nicolet’s baseball team reached the summer 1976 baseball state finals, and he went on to play at UW-Stevens Point. He worked with the school newspaper, interned in the sports information department and even interviewed with the Brewers’ public relations department. He worked in radio before accepting a public relations position in 1984 with the Butte Copper Kings, the Class A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners in the Pioneer League.

From there he joined the Portland Beavers, the Class AAA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, but when the team was sold to another ownership group, he got a scouting job with the Orioles and moved across the country to New Jersey.

He was among the scouts who followed Pennsylvania high school senior Mike Mussina, and it was Moesche’s team that pulled the trigger. Mussina was drafted in the 11th round by Baltimore in 1987 and again by the Stanford University Orioles in the first round of the 1990 draft; he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019.

Moesche worked for the Yankees for four years, then took a job as a scouting supervisor with the MLB scouting bureau, returning to the Pacific Northwest and identifying prospects for all 30 teams. He held this position for 21 years before the office was dissolved.

In 2000, he worked for Team USA as an advance scout and was part of the team that won the 2000 Olympic gold medal, achieved when Brewers minor leaguer Ben Sheets piloted his team to a stunning 4-1 victory over Cuba in the final match.

Moesche joined the Red Sox in the fall of 2017, still covering the Pacific Northwest and parts of Canada; the franchise won the World Series in 2018.

He met Willie Mays one other time in an interesting interaction in 1987.

Willie Mays offered to buy baseball from Moesche

In 1987, Moesche had read in the Philadelphia Inquirer that Mays and Sparky Lyle would be signing autographs at an area high school, so Moesche brought baseball to the event.

“I said, ‘Mr. Mays, that’s the ball you hit at County Stadium on June 29, 1975,’ and he looked at me before he signed it and said, ‘Yeah, I hit this on Early Wynn.’ He knew it instantly.”

Then things took a surprising turn; Mays signed it but briefly withdrew it and offered to buy it from Moesche.

“I said, ‘I can’t sell it to you; you’re the reason I’m in baseball,'” Moesche said. “‘I didn’t even go to the game that night until I found out you were playing.’ I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t expect him to say it, but I couldn’t do it.

Moesche said Mays told him it was the last home run he hit in a major league park.

In the aftermath of Mays’ death, Moesche said he had already been in contact with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and was considering leaving it at the museum.