Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Matt Moore grew up playing baseball on Air Force bases around the world. His father, Marty, is a retired Airman, who taught his sons the Air Force core values through their participation in the sport. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)
During a 2011 Major League Baseball playoff game, Tampa Bay Rays rookie pitcher Matt Moore stood on the mound against the Texas Rangers. It was just his second game starting in the major leagues, and he was up against the American League defending champs.
Adrenaline pulsed through his veins. The left-handed pitcher took a deep breath, wound up and sent the ball off his fingertips, zooming toward the batter. He had prepared for that moment since he was a child, and it paid off. That night, Matt pitched seven scoreless innings, only allowing two hits, and led his team to a 9-0 victory. The week before, during his debut at Yankee Stadium, he struck out 11 batters in five scoreless innings.
In his short but stellar career, Matt has already set records. He has the most strikeouts of any Tampa Bay Rays rookie pitcher, and it is said there is only one American League starting pitcher who throws a faster hardball.
Long before he stood on the pitcher’s mound in Tropicana Stadium, he was playing baseball at youth centers on Air Force bases. The son of an Airman, Matt was born while his dad was stationed at Hurlburt Field, Fla., and grew up traveling around the world to wherever his father’s career took his family.
Matt Moore, 8, and his father, Marty, linger on the field after a Little League game in Okinawa, Japan. As a child, Matt played Little League Baseball, and Marty was often his coach. Although Marty frequently deployed on Air Force missions, he made sure he was around for Matt’s baseball games. (Courtesy photo/Moore family)
Matt’s father, Marty Moore, spent 23 years in the Air Force as a crew chief and maintainer of MH-53 Pave Lows for the Air Force Special Operations Command. He joined the Air Force at the age of 17, the same age Matt left home to play baseball in the minor leagues, and described himself at the time as an “undisciplined young man.”
But after a few years in the Air Force, Marty began applying to his personal life and teaching his sons the values he learned through his service, like accountability, integrity and a strong work ethic. He found that one way to develop these values in his sons was to involve them in baseball.
“I was playing catch with my kids when they were very young – probably before they could walk,” Marty said. “I was pitching to them by the time they were 18 months old, and they could make contact then. As they got older, the game was suited to teaching some other life lessons. The worst consequence in the game of baseball is to lose the game for not playing your part, holding up your end of the bargain or doing the work. They have much greater consequences in real life, but you get to teach those lessons through the game.”
Working in the special operations community often meant Marty was away from home for long periods of time. But he made sure he was able to honor his commitments to the Air Force and his sons at the same time.
“I made every deal with the devil you can make — with friends, enemies and bosses — to take every trip during the winter time so that I could be home for baseball season,” Marty said. “I was able to coach every one of their teams. I tell everybody if my kids would’ve liked piano, I would’ve been a piano teacher. To me, the important part was to stay involved.”
Marty and Matt agree that growing up in the Air Force and playing youth center sports were crucial to Matt’s development as professional baseball player.
The frequent moves required for his father’s career weren’t easy for Matt, but one of the skills he gained from traveling with the Air Force was how to make new friends wherever he went.
Moore throws a pitch during a Tampa Bay Rays game at Tropicana Field in Tampa, Fla. (Tampa Bay Rays photo/Skip Milos)
He found the family’s move to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, when he was 6 years old particularly challenging. He and his brother had to make friends with new kids in a new country and adjust to a different style of baseball. But eventually, they joined baseball teams and made new friends.
That experience prepared Matt with valuable skills he needed later, when he attended three or four schools in one year, and when he was a teenager progressing through the minor leagues and traveling with his new teammates, some of whom were significantly older. He was able to reference the times he played on teams with his older brother at whatever their new duty station happened to be at the time.
“I went from city to city in the minor leagues, and sometimes I wasn’t on the same team with the same guys as the year before,” Matt said. “That experience that we had going from Florida to Okinawa and Okinawa to New Mexico, I think is a solid tool for my brother and me. Getting to know people and stuff like that really hasn’t been an issue for me since fifth or sixth grade.”
According to Marty, Matt’s experiences playing baseball with other Air Force kids also taught him the value of being a team player.
“When you’re growing up on an Air Force base and playing at the youth center, all the kids on the field have their names on their back, and all the parents in the stands have their name on their front,” Marty said. “So you learn very quickly that your actions affect more than just you. If you’re a kid growing up on an Air Force base, you don’t just get in trouble, your dad gets in trouble,” he said as he laughed. “Then you start taking care of those people around you at a very young age because you don’t want those people getting in trouble.”
Marty admits that his son is talented and that’s what got him drafted. But his work ethic is what got him into in the big leagues and has made him successful.
“He got called up to the big leagues last summer, and he wound up pitching in the first game of the playoffs against the Texas Rangers,” he said. “After the game, we were waiting in the tunnel for him to come out. Andrew Friedman, the general manager of the Tampa Bay Rays, came up to me and said, ‘I love your son, and baseball doesn’t have a lot to do with it.’ For me, that was validation that they had seen not only that he had some talent, but that he had some brains and ethics and composure and all of those things that you work on with kids. Then you stand back and watch them go off and do great things.”
Matt gives his parents much of the credit for the success he’s experienced.
“The values that my dad and my mom taught me were discipline and integrity,” he said. “If you can live within the definition of those words and check yourself here and there and still be able to look at yourself at the end of the day, you’re going to be OK. Being a professional baseball player, you have a lot of opportunities to go either way.
Tampa Bay Rays Pitcher Matt Moore throws a pitch during a game at Tropicana Field in Tampa, Fla. Moore made his Major League debut on September 14, 2011. (Tampa Bay Rays photo/Skip Milos)
“I sometimes wonder what sets me apart from other people,” he said. “Very rarely do you find it’s a skill set. More often, it’s a mindset or the intangibles. I really do believe had it not been for the way I was raised, I might not be (where) I am today.”
Today, Matt is living his dream, but he hasn’t forgotten where he came from – just up the interstate at Hurlburt Field. As an Air Force child, he has pride in the uniform; not just in his own No. 56, but also in that of the armed services that his dad served in.
“We do a little bit of work with the Wounded Warrior Project at MacDill Air Force Base, (Fla.) and some of the veterans come down,” he said. “Things like that help me appreciate this game even more as far as when I’m having a bad day, it’s just a bad day. This is just a game when it comes to the sacrifices my dad made throughout his career. That sacrifice is something that takes me down a notch and makes me have a little bit more fun playing.”
It may have been years since Matt played at the youth center in Okinawa, but when he stands on the field during the National Anthem and hears Air Force jets roaring overhead in a fly-over, the Air Force kid in him gets riled up.
“It’s like the hair on the back of your neck stands up, and you just get this adrenaline rush where it’s just like, ‘Let’s do this!’” he said.
As Matt continues his MLB career, he still carries the values his dad instilled in him as a young boy: integrity first, service before self; and excellence in all we do. Especially integrity first.
When Matt was 12-years-old, he asked his dad what he wanted when he finally made it to the big leagues. Marty said, “Tickets.”