ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100031
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN THE ROANOKE TIMES
Wally Moss, the Salem Avalanche's bullpen catcher, is a pitcher and manager's best friend.
Each day when the Salem Avalanche has a home game, Wally Moss can't wait until 5 p.m. That's the time he puts his career as a salesman on hold and picks up the professional baseball career he put on hold a quarter-century ago.
Moss, 41, may be the only person in professional baseball who works for free. Of course, he would tell you he's well-compensated. Moss is a salesman with Associated Packaging Inc., during daylight hours. By night, he's the bullpen catcher for the Salem Avalanche.
``I think his pay is his reward of being around the team,'' said Avalanche manager Bill ``Moose'' McGuire.
Moss has been around baseball all his life. He had a chance to play for pay when he was 17 years old, but went to Western Kentucky University on a baseball scholarship instead. Both of his older brothers attended college, so Moss wasn't allowed to be an exception.
``My father didn't have the luxury of getting a college education,'' Moss said this week in the Salem dugout, where he had not yet changed out of his 9-to-5 salesman's suit. ``He was adamant that all of us were going to school.''
Moss was wise to go the academic route. By the time he graduated from Western Kentucky in 1978, he had a degree in business administration and a right shoulder that couldn't throw a baseball anymore. During his junior season, Moss took a throw to the plate from right field and just as he was squaring to make the tag on a homeward bound baserunner, he was knocked on his back. His right armpit landed on top of his catcher's mask, ripping the joint around his shoulder blade. The shoulder was so severely damaged he barely could adjust the dial on his car radio. He was given a 50-50 chance of playing again.
``I wasn't willing to gamble like that,'' Moss said. ``It never felt right from that point on.''
The game of baseball, however, never felt wrong.
Moss moved to the Roanoke Valley in 1981. He got back into the game late in the summer of 1995, when he met then-Avalanche pitching coach Bill Champion at a golf tournament. They talked about - what else? - baseball, and Champion advised Moss of a little problem the Avalanche had at the time.
Yohel Pozo was the only catcher on the Salem roster and his body was about to give out. ``He had caught like 40 games in a row toward that last stretch drive in the August heat,'' Moss said.
Champion told Moss the team could use some help. A pitcher had tried to catch some during warm-ups in the bullpen and wound up with a broken thumb.
Champion told Moss, ``We would like to have you out if you think you can still go out there and do it.''
Moss said, ``Well, I'm not really too concerned if I can do it, it's whether my knees can do it.''
To get an idea of what Moss goes through, go to work for eight hours, come home and try squatting on your toes and reading this newspaper for three hours a day for the next few weeks.
``I couldn't do what he's doing,'' said Salem pitcher Steve Shoemaker.
``I feel bad for his wife,'' said fellow hurler Mike Vavrek.
Moss celebrated his fifth wedding anniversary with his wife, Terry, in February.
``If that's what makes him feel good, I'm all for it,'' said Terry Moss, who works in Allstate's insurance claims department. ``Baseball always has been his life. This is his way of living out what his hopes and dreams were.''
Moss derives nothing but pleasure from it. He's good at it, too.
``He doesn't embarrass himself by what he does,'' McGuire said. ``He truly can handle every pitcher we have.''
Avalanche pitchers are like clay in Moss' hands. He is not their coach; that duty falls to Bryn Smith. Moss is the guy who tells the players jokes (``I guess I forget more jokes in a week's time than most people hear all year,'' he says), tries to make them feel as comfortable as possible in the Roanoke Valley and showers them with Tootsie Rolls and sunflower seeds.
``He's more of a friend and companion,'' said Vavrek, who along with Shoemaker joined Moss for a water-skiing trip on Smith Mountain Lake this past summer.
``It takes you like 10 minutes to know him,'' Shoemaker said.
The Avalanche knows this: The team is lucky to have him. Triple-A Colorado Springs is the only other affiliate of the parent Colorado Rockies that has a bullpen catcher.
``When he doesn't come, you miss him,'' McGuire said. ``It's no fun. It's a lot better when he's here than when he's not.''
McGuire knows the value of having extra catchers. He was the only catcher on his team during his first year in pro ball. He caught pitchers on their off-day workouts, caught batting practice, went back to the bullpen to warm up the starter, then hit and caught the entire game. ``It's no fun to do that,'' McGuire said. ``That was ridiculous.''
Now it is Moss who works long hours, completely out of his own volition.
``Whatever happens, whether good or bad, during the course of my business day, it doesn't matter,'' Moss said. ``For three, four hours, I don't have that.
``I can come out here, get a little exercise, and give something back to a game that allowed me to get a college education, the national pastime.''
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY THE ROANOKE TIMES. Wally Moss says that asby CNBthe Avalanche's bullpen catcher, ``I can come out here, get a little
exercise, and give something back to a game that allowed me to get a
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