The Oldest Rookie

“No one taught me to keep my eye on the ball.”

Jimmy Moore is sitting in a coffeehouse in North Hollywood, lamenting what might have been. And he is hoping, wistfully, that maybe it’s not too late.

He’s 44 years old and has quit 38 jobs since he came back from Vietnam. He’s built helicopters, sold cars and for a spell he worked as a private eye. These days, James Hamilton Moore is a self-employed computer consultant. He calls himself a “data entry environmental specialist,” but he hasn’t had many clients lately.

His mind is on other things. Now he wants to be a big leaguer.

*

Most fans are disgusted by the feuding millionaires who have shut down major league baseball. But Jimmy Moore figures it’s carpe diem time. He won’t let the gray hair and extra poundage discourage him. He is grabbing the moment, striving against ridiculous odds, hoping that come opening day, he might be starting at second base for, say, the Florida Marlins. (The Dodgers, Royals, Blue Jays and Phillies have already had their chance.)

Now, if Moore could throw a wicked knuckleball, if he were an ex-minor leaguer who had lately been an ace in over-30 rec leagues, he might just have the slimmest of hopes--assuming, of course, that the season starts with replacement players. But the truth is that he can’t throw a knuckler and wasn’t even that good in Little League. Not that he lacked athletic talent. The problem, he reminds you, is that nobody gave him that crucial tip about watching the ball.

Back then, Jimmy was the daydreamer who was stuck out in right field, the same position where Charlie Brown plays Lucy, and he’d have done Lucy proud, dropping routine fly balls. That’s what happens when you’re easily distracted.

Jimmy wasn’t much with a bat either, but he was a terror on the base paths. Before we talked, he jotted down some Little League memories:

“Couldn’t hit. Once, when I was about 10, a kid named Roy Hill in a game at Heman Park in University City, Mo., struck me out on my first at-bat. The next time I was up, he bowled four balls over the plate, so I walked. I guess he could see how bad I was. I then stole second, then third and finally home. That was my revenge for being insulted. My coach said I almost gave him a heart attack.”

Later, he played a bit in prep school in upstate New York: “I still remember playing first base and just sticking my glove out and having the ball whiz by because I still hadn’t been taught to ‘keep my eye on the ball,’ even when it was thrown to me.”

Jimmy’s parents split up when he was 2 1/2. His dad wasn’t around much and his mom “was never meant to be a mother.” He was raised by his grandfather, a wealthy doctor. They lived in a mansion and always had money, but family life was a mess. His aunts and uncles, he says, were “like vultures” waiting for their inheritance.

Jimmy figures that’s why he’s bounced from job to job. “High IQ, low achiever,” he says, describing the inverse of Forrest Gump. “I hated money. I’ve always had a strong aversion to success. . . . It was just in the last couple of years I got over that.”

And so now he goes to the batting cages, honing the skills he discovered in his 20s, after somebody finally told him the secret of baseball. He says he became such a good gloveman that his teammates nicknamed him “Javier” because he reminded them of the Cardinals’ slick second baseman.

Julian Javier retired in 1972. Now his son Stan is on strike.

*

Jimmy used to be a Teamster, back when he worked in a warehouse, but it won’t bother him a bit if striking major leaguers call him a “scab.” Unions are supposed to help working people, he explains, not these spoiled ballplayers who don’t hustle like Pete Rose.

Walter Mitty never took his dreams this seriously. When the Toronto Blue Jays staged an open tryout at Pierce College one recent Sunday, Jimmy was one of the oldest guys to show up. The Blue Jay staff was rude and never really gave him a chance. When he tried out for the Phillies down in Santa Ana, the coaches treated him with respect. Unfortunately, Jimmy pulled a muscle in a 60-yard time trial. When Jimmy requested tryouts with the Dodgers and Royals, the clubs responded with letters saying thanks but no thanks.

So now he’s planning to fly down to Florida in March for an open tryout with the Marlins. The Marlins are one of baseball’s worst teams, so Jimmy figures he’s got a shot. He says he will happily accept the ’94 major league minimum of $109,000.

“If I could play baseball for just two years, that’s really what I’d like to do,” Jimmy says. “. . . I don’t know why nobody taught me to keep my eye on the ball. That’s the key in every game.”