Charlie Moore, the catcher and outfielder who spent fourteen seasons as one of the most reliable and versatile players in Milwaukee Brewers history and was a key member of the beloved 1982 American League pennant-winning team, died on May 23, 2026. He was 72.
Born June 21, 1953 in Birmingham, Alabama, Moore was a quarterback good enough to earn a football scholarship to Auburn University, but when the Milwaukee Brewers selected him in the fifth round of the 1971 MLB Draft, he chose baseball instead. It turned out to be the right call. He made his Major League debut on September 8, 1973 and spent the next fourteen seasons as one of the most dependable players in the Brewers clubhouse, appearing in 1,283 regular season games with Milwaukee and batting .262 with 35 home runs and 401 RBI.
He was the kind of player every winning team needs and not enough teams have — someone who could catch, play the outfield, hit in the clutch, and show up every day ready to do whatever the situation required. On October 3, 1976, he crossed home plate on the last run batted in of Hank Aaron’s career, driven in by Aaron’s sixth-inning single at Milwaukee County Stadium. It is the sort of footnote that only becomes meaningful in retrospect, and it is a genuinely meaningful one.
On October 1, 1980, Moore did something only a handful of players in Major League history had done before him: he hit for the cycle, going single, double, triple, and home run in a Brewers 10-7 win over the California Angels. He added two stolen bases in the same game, becoming the only player in MLB history to record two steals in a game while also hitting for the cycle. Nobody has matched it since.
The 1982 season was his finest hour. As part of Harvey Kuenn’s Harvey’s Wallbangers, he hit .462 in the American League Championship Series as the Brewers defeated the California Angels in five games, and made one of the most important defensive plays of the series — throwing out Reggie Jackson at third base from right field in the deciding fifth game. He then hit .346 in the World Series, where Milwaukee fell to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. It was as close as his team would come.
After his playing career ended, Moore worked for more than fifteen years as a sales representative for a fastener company back home in Birmingham — a quiet, ordinary life after an extraordinary one in uniform. In 2014, he was inducted into the Milwaukee Brewers Wall of Honor, a recognition that placed him alongside the greatest players in franchise history, where he absolutely belonged.
He was 72 years old. Milwaukee baseball was better for every one of the seasons he gave it.