Jo-Jo Moore, a perennial All-Star outfielder whose batting stroke and powerful arm helped the New York Giants capture three pennants in the 1930's, died April 1 in Bryan, Tex. He was 92.

Known as the Gause Ghost, for his slender build and the central Texas town where he was born, Moore did not have the physique to impress the Giants' manager, John McGraw, who got a brief look at him in 1930. But when McGraw retired in June 1932, his successor, Bill Terry, was undeterred by Moore's 5-foot-11-inch, 155-pound frame. One of Terry's first moves was to summon Moore from the minor leagues.

Moore starred as the Giants' left fielder through the 1941 season, leading off in a lineup that had three future Hall of Famers: Terry, Mel Ott and Travis Jackson.

A left-handed batter well known for swinging at first pitches, Moore batted over .300 five times and had a career average of .298. His best season was 1934, when he hit .331 and hit safely in 23 consecutive games. He was selected to the National League All-Star team from 1934 to 1938 and again in 1940.

Moore had one of the strongest outfield arms of his era, and he claimed, ''I never once lost a fly ball in the sun.''

Joseph Gregg Moore was born in Gause, 85 miles northeast of Austin, on Dec. 25, 1908. After three years in the minors, his contract was sold by San Antonio of the Texas League to the Giants, and he got into three games late in 1930. He played four games with the Giants in 1931, and the following summer he was rescued by Terry after McGraw had relegated him to Newark and Jersey City of the International League.

Moore arrived in New York to stay at the height of the Depression. ''I saw street corner after street corner where they had soup kitchens, and the people would be four abreast and the lines would run for several blocks,'' he remembered.

But the 1930's were mostly good times for the Giants, who rode the pitching of Carl Hubbell and Hal Schumacher and a talented lineup to pennants in 1933, '36 and '37. Moore was third in the National League's most valuable player balloting in 1933, behind Dizzy Dean and Paul Waner.

In 1933 he tied a World Series record by getting two hits in one inning against the Washington Senators. Moore was so accustomed to swinging at first deliveries that opposing managers sometimes fined their pitchers if they yielded hits to him by making their first pitches too good. Nevertheless, Washington's Alvin Crowder yielded a pair of first-pitch singles to Moore in a six-run sixth inning of Game 2. The Giants won the Series in five games.

The Giants lost to the Yankees in the 1936 and '37 World Series, but Moore tied a record for most hits in a five-game Series when he had 9 hits in 23 at-bats in 1937.

Moore was a slap hitter when he arrived with the Giants, but Lefty O'Doul, the star outfielder then near the end of his career, taught him to pull the ball, and he was adept at producing extra-base hits.

Moore often waited until the last possible moment before swinging. Looking back on those World Series against the Yankees, he remembered, ''Bill Dickey once told me, 'I've caught behind lots of guys, but I've never had anybody hit the ball right out of my mitt the way you do.' ''

When his career with the Giants ended, Moore played again in the minor leagues, then returned to Gause, where he raised cattle.

He is survived by a son, Joe Jr., of Gause; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Although his slight physique did not keep him from a starring role, Moore sometimes shied away from roughhousing. One time, when the Giants and the rowdy St. Louis Cardinals known as the Gashouse Gang were brawling, Moore sat down in left field, waiting out the fisticuffs. Suddenly he saw Pepper Martin, the Cardinals' third baseman, running toward him.

As Moore remembered it: ''I thought, 'Oh, oh this doesn't look so good.' I said, 'What are you doing out here?' And he said: 'I'm going to sit with you. The last time I got into one of those scraps I got hit in the mouth and never saw it coming -- turned me upside down.' ''

Joe G Moore