Charles Moran

Charles Vincent Moran

• Bats Unknown, Throws Right
• School Georgetown University
• Debut April 29, 1903
• Final Game June 19, 1905
• Born March 26, 1879 in Washington, DC USA
• Died April 11, 1934 in Washington, DC USA

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Biographical Information

Charles Moran was at Georgetown University at the same time as Art Devlin and Doc White. A year after he left Georgetown, he was in the majors with the 1903 Washington Senators as the starting shortstop, getting 373 at-bats.

He was one of the youngest players, at age 24, on a team whose average age was 29. His .225 batting average was only six points below the team average of .231.

The following year he appeared in 62 games with the Senators but lost his job at shorstop to 21-year-old Joe Cassidy who led the team in triples. Moran was traded in July to the St. Louis Browns, where he couldn't play shortstop due to Bobby Wallace owning the job, so he became the regular third baseman, although he hit only .173.

Harry Gleason became the team's third baseman in 1905, while Moran played mostly at second base, where Ike Rockenfield was the regular. Moran's last game in the majors was on June 19.

He died at age 55.

He is not to be confused with Charlie Moran, who was also in the majors in 1903, with the St. Louis Cardinals. The way that Sporting Life dealt with the two was to call Charles "Charlie Moran the shortstop", or "Charlie Moran the second baseman" or "Charlie Moran the Georgetown boy", while the other fellow was "Charlie Moran the catcher". Either one could be referred to as "Charley" rather than "Charlie". Other Morans added to the possible confusion - the Sporting Life issue of October 25, 1902, believed that a story about Charles possibly going to play with Boston appeared because some writer had confused Charles with Pat Moran, a Boston catcher in 1902.

"Charley Moran, the former Georgetown shortstop and captain, is also in fine fettle. Charley played second base for the strong Scranton team. He at least succeeded in doing the same kind of hitting he used to do in college days, besides fielding in his usual finished style. The result is that the Scranton people are talking about making him manager, mayor, etc., and he had hard work to keep them from giving him the town." - Sporting Life's Washington correspondent in the Nov. 21, 1908 issue

Related Sites

• Charles Moran at the SABR Bio Project