Primary Position: Starting pitcher
Birthplace: Mount Pleasant
First, Middle Names: Walter Frederick
Date of Birth: Feb. 27, 1881 Date and Place of Death: Dec. 10, 1946 Burial: West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, PA
High School: Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute, Mount Pleasant, NC
College: Lenoir-Rhyne University, Hickory, NC
Bats: R Throws: R Height and Weight: 5-9, 170
Debut Year: 1906 Final Year: 1911 Years Played: 2
Teams and Years: Philadelphia Phillies, 1906; Boston Red Sox, 1911; St. Louis Browns, 1911
Career Summary
G W L Sv ERA IP SO WAR
14 0 7 0 4.58 70.2 30 -3.1
Despite what his numbers suggest, Walter Moser could pitch. Down in the minors, he won more than 120 games during a six-year career. He won 19 straight once, a sure sign that the guy could consistently pitch winning baseball. And there’s this: He had 30 wins in another season, a benchmark that few pitchers at any level ever reach. As with any Dead Ball Era pitcher worth his chewing tobacco, he logged more than 300 innings most years and often started both games of doubleheaders.
Why, then, did this effective minor-league pitcher stink it up in the majors? How did a guy who played well everywhere else accumulate in only 14 big-league games the lowest Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, of any of his North Carolina pitching peers? That number implies that Moser’s teams were worse with him on the mound, that they lost more than three games over his short career with him out there instead of an average pitcher.