Ted Moore Belongs in the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame

Anyone who is familiar with my writing over the past 16 years covering the Green Bay Packers knows that I was a huge proponent for the rightful induction of Jerry Kramer into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That goes back to my days at Packer Report.

I feel the same way about other former Packers. Players like Bobby Dillon, Boyd Dowler, Ron Kramer, Fuzzy Thurston, Gale Gillingham,  LeRoy Butler and Sterling Sharpe. At the very least, the careers of these players need to be brought into the discussion about being enshrined in Canton.

But that’s another story. This story is about a man who definitely needs to be inducted into another Hall of Fame…the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. Just like [Jerry] Kramer (1975), Dowler (1978), [Ron] Kramer (1975), Thurston (1975), Gillingham (1982), Dillon (1974), Butler (2007) and Sharpe (2002) were.

I’m talking about the former radio announcer of the Packers in the Vince Lombardi era, Ted Moore.

I grew up in that era. It was the golden age for Packer Nation, as Lombardi’s Packers won five NFL titles in seven years, including the first two Super Bowls. The team also won an unprecedented three NFL championships in a row, a feat that has never been duplicated in the playoff era of the NFL going back to 1933.

Back in those days, if you watched the Packers on television, you heard and saw Ray Scott do the games on CBS. But if you listened to the games on the radio, you listened to Moore on the Packers radio network. The flagship station for the Packers then and now was WTMJ in Milwaukee.

Back then, all local games were blacked out on television (even if they were sold out). So unless I was able to attend a game in person at Milwaukee County Stadium (which I did on a few occasions), I listened to the rest the Packer games in Milwaukee on the radio. The same held true for anyone who lived in Green Bay for Packer games at City Stadium/Lambeau Field.

Scott was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 2001. So were a couple of other legendary Green Bay newspaper reporters who covered the Packers back then, as both Art Daley (1993) and Lee Remmel (1996) have been enshrined as well. So was the team photographer during that time, Vernon Biever (2002).

Basically everyone who covered the Packers during the Lombardi era is in the Packers Hall of Fame. All except Moore.

Now there have been two Packer radio announcers who have been inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame. They are Russ Winnie (2016) and Jim Irwin (2003).

I expect them to be joined at some point by Moore and current radio play-by-play man, Wayne Larrivee.

I got to know Irwin pretty well at WTMJ in 1980 and 1981 when I worked there, first as an intern and then as a freelance reporter. In fact, I got to know Irwin so well, that he was the No. 1 reference listed on my résumé while I was looking for broadcasting and journalism work out of college.

Now longevity in covering the Packers does play a part in getting into the Hall of Fame for the team. Daley (68 years), Remmel (62 years) and Biever (61 years) each covered the Packers for over six decades.

Scott (10 years), Winnie (17 years) and Irwin (29 years) all covered the team for at least a decade and in Irwin’s case, almost three decades.

Moore spent 12 years broadcasting games for the Packers. And it was he who first hired Irwin.

Like I mentioned in my most recent story, the quarterback sneak by Bart Starr in the 1967 NFL title game between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, was one of the most iconic plays in NFL history.

And it has to be the greatest play in the history of the Packers. It was Moore who provided the play-by-play on that legendary moment in Green Bay lore.

“Third down and inches to go to pay dirt. 17-14, Cowboys out in front. Starr begins the count and he takes the quarterback sneak and he’s in for the touchdown and the Packers are out in front. The Green Bay Packers are going to be world champions,” Moore yelled out, as the 50,000-plus frozen faithful in the Lambeau Field stands went delirious.

Moore did the radio broadcasts for all six of the NFL championship games that the Packers under Lombardi played in.

There are currently 159 members of the Packers Hall of Fame. That number will go up by two, as Mark Tauscher and Ryan Longwell will get inducted later this summer. Of those 159 members, 26 have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

After Moore left the Packers, he broadcast the games in 1970 for the Baltimore Colts. He brought some championship luck to the Colts as well, as the team went on to win Super Bowl V.

Moore later returned to Milwaukee and spent some time at WEMP and WOKY.

My dad was one of Moore’s loyal listeners during in his time in Wisconsin, as he announced football and basketball games (22 years) for the University of Wisconsin, and also called basketball games for Marquette University one year.

Speaking of fathers and sons, Moore’s son Richard has page on Facebook called Put Ted Moore in The Packer Hall of Fame.

Moore is already in the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame, but he also certainly deserves to be in the Packers Hall of Fame.

Moore passed away in 2014 at the age of 87, so he never was able to see himself enshrined with the best of the best in the the history of the Packers.

Being inducted in 2019 would be very apropos, as it would be the 50th anniversary of Moore’s final season with the Packers.

Each summer when I come back to Wisconsin, I always try to make a number of trips to Green Bay from our summer home in Cedar Grove, right off of Lake Michigan. I almost always stop in and go through the Packers Hall of Fame in the Lambeau Field Atrium.

The Packers Hall of Fame has been around since 1967, but with the new and improved look of the historical landscape now, it has truly become a must-see stop for not only all Packers fans, but all NFL fans in general.

I look forward to the day when I will see Moore’s name listed among the greats in the Packers Hall of Fame.