Jun 10th, 2009 | 4:10 pm |

Sometime in the 1920’s Metro Moreshonish told his son ”You can do anything you want if you play baseball, anything.” Metro Morekonich came to the United States from the Ukraine and settled in Western Pennyslvania to work as a Coalminer. Metro Moreshonish would have a son born to him in 1919, whose birth name was Charlie.
Charlie Morekonich would become a rising star in the County Baseball leagues, the papers couldn’t fit his surname in the box score, so they printed, metro, him new nick name was “Little Metro”, later he became ”Charlie Metro”
Charlie Metro worked the summers in the a Western Pennsylvania Coal mine, after surving a gas explosion Metro said “The Heck with that” and never returned.
Metro played in the major leagues from 1943 to 1945 with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Athletics. He managed for parts of two seasons, with the 1962 Cubs and the 1970 Kansas City Royals. He also coached the 1965 Chicago White Sox and the 1982 Oakland Athletics. Although he had far longer service in the minor leagues, he will probably be best remembered as one of the great scouts and teachers in baseball history.
Charlie “was very demanding, and he insisted that we play hard every day.” Said Lou Piniella, who played for Metro as a member of the Kansas City Royals 1970.

While Metro was a player with the Oakland Oak’s of the Pacific Coast League, Billy Martin was a bat boy, and Metro and the young Martin struck up a relationship.
” I mentored him. My family didn’t come out in August to Oakland, and he was one of these kids who hovered around the ballpark. And the trainer befriended him to keep him out of trouble. He was always there when I’d go out at 3 PM for a night game, and one day he said, “Hey Big Leaguer!” And I look at him and say, “Kid, what do you want?” He said, “Big Leaguer, throw me some batting practice.” And Red Adams was the trainer, so I went in and got the bag of balls from him.


“While a player with the Oakland A’s, Billy Martin was a bat boy, and Metro and the young Martin struck up a relationship.”
Are you sure you don’t mean the Oakland Oaks – the PCL team? Martin managed the A’s who weren’t in existence until 1968, i believe.
Thanks for catching that Metro was a player with the Oakland Oaks, not the A’s.
He later was a bench Coach of Martin’s when Martin was the Manager of the A’s