A native of Los Angeles, he appeared as a second baseman in parts of three Major League Baseball seasons (1961–1962; 1964) for the Kansas City Athletics.

He batted left-handed, threw right-handed, stood 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) tall and weighed 155 pounds (70 kg).

[1] In his Major League debut, Shoemaker collected ten hits in 28 at bats, including two doubles, for a .385 average.

However, in his next two MLB trials — in 1962 and 1964 — he batted .206 (13 for 63), and the final seven years of his career (1965–1971) were spent exclusively in minor league baseball.

Charlie Shoemaker died in Mount Penn, Pennsylvania, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 50 on May 31, 1990.