Wally Moon, 60, Doesn’t Mind the Minors : Baseball: Former Dodger has a master’s degree in education and enjoys teaching game to Class A players.

At first glance he might look out of place to the casual observer. The graying temples give him a distinguished look that not even a baseball uniform can hide.

He stands on the top step of the dugout watching each pitch. Every move is charted in his mental computer. He is surrounded by kids younger than his own children.

Two of those charged to his care are Pete Rose II and Keith Kessinger, whose fathers played against him in the major leagues almost three decades ago. To him, a generation gap is nothing more than a difference in age. Tell him he looks, and sounds, like he could be a teacher and he will smile. The man has a master’s degree in education from Texas A&M.;

Make no mistake about it, Wally Moon is a teacher.

That’s what brings him to the foothills of the Catoctin Mountains to manage a Single A baseball team. That’s what enables him to endure bus rides that test the mental and physical endurance of men half his age.

He is not a career minor-leaguer, like many in his profession. He has spent more time on college campuses than some professors.

He has also spent most of his life on baseball diamonds. And, at the age of 60, he has no immediate plans to change his lifestyle.

This is Moon’s first year as manager of the Frederick Keys, the Baltimore Orioles’ Carolina League farm team. It is his first year in the organization, only the fifth year he has managed a minor-league team.

What propels him to continue? What drives him to put on a uniform instead of packing a fishing pole?

“I’m challenged by the teaching process,” Moon said. “I’m interested in young people. I like to be around them, work with them, see them do things.”

Patience is a key to Moon’s approach, dating back to his playing days. A left-handed hitter who came up with the Cardinals, he made an art of hitting to the opposite field after being traded to the Dodgers. He briefly played “screeno,” hitting home runs over the left-field screen in the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Moon disappeared from the professional scene when his playing career ended in 1965, but he hardly reached this stage of his career by accident.

“The children were growing up, drugs were starting to come on the scene, and I decided I didn’t want to raise my family in Southern California,” Moon said. He and his wife, Bettye, have five children. “I sought out a small school (John Brown University) in Arkansas and spent 15 years there as baseball coach.

In 1977, something possessed Moon to get into the ownership end of professional baseball. “I bought the San Antonio team, with the idea that my son (Wally Joe) could run it after getting out of graduate school,” he recalled. “But my general manager got promoted to a job in Rochester during the winter meetings and the next thing I knew the season was ready to start and I didn’t have any program ads or tickets sold.” To protect his interest, Moon ultimately got out of college coaching and took over operations of the San Antonio team. “Before I knew it, I was $250,000 in debt,” he said. “It took me six years to get out.”

How long will he continue in baseball?

“As long as I feel as good as I feel now, and somebody will give me a job,” he said. I feel really good physically and mentally.”