Posted on 04/27/2012 11:07:27 AM PDT by Doogle
Skowron, a four-time All-Star, was the Yankees regular first baseman from 1955-62, averaging 21 homers and 75 RBI and finished his career with a .282 average, 211 homers and 888 RBI. He was especially lethal in the World Series in which he compiled a .293 average, eight homers and 29 RBI in 39 games over eight Fall Classics.
In the 1956 World Series for the Yankees, Skowron had been held hitless by the Dodgers until the seventh game when he came to bat with the bases loaded in the seventh inning and hit a grand slam homer into the left field stands to break the game open. Two years later, Skowron spurred the Yankees to a comeback from three games to one against the Braves by singling home what proved to be the winning run in the 10th inning of their Game 6 4-3 victory, then hit a decisive three-run eighth-inning homer off Yankee killer Lew Burdette for the 6-2 Game 7 win.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/bill-moose-skowron-hero-yankees-1958-world-series-team-dead-81-battle-lung-cancer-article-1.1068661#ixzz1tGVpzJAu
RIP Mr. Skowron.
ping
William Joseph “Moose” Skowron Jr. (December 18,1930 - April 27, 2012) is a former Major League Baseball player, primarily a first baseman. He was a Community Relations Representative for the White Sox.
Skowron was born in Chicago, Illinois, and is of Polish descent. His father was a garbage collector. After his grandfather gave the seven year old Skowron a haircut that looked like the dictator’s and his friends jokingly called him “Mussolini”, his family shortened the nickname to “Moose.”[1] The name stuck throughout his career.
“Moose” attended Weber High School on the intersection of Division and Ashland in Chicago. He went to Purdue University, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, on a football scholarship, but found himself better suited to baseball when he hit .500 as a sophomore, a record in the Big Ten Conference that lasted ten years.
Signed by the New York Yankees in 1950 as an amateur free agent, he played his first game for the Yankees on April 13, 1954. He wore uniform number 53 in the 1954 season, but switched to #14 in 1955 and stayed with that number for the rest of his years with the Yankees. In the beginning, he was platooned at first base with Joe Collins, but from 1958 on he became the Yankees’ full time first baseman. He played in five All-Star Games as a Yankee: 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, and 1961.
On November 26, 1962 he was traded by the Yankees to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Stan Williams. He kept his Yankee uniform number, 14, on the Dodgers. Although Skowron floundered against National League pitching, batting just .203 in 237 at bats with four home runs, he stunned his former team in the 1963 World Series. Playing against his old Yankee teammates, Skowron led the Dodgers with a .385 average and a home run, as Los Angeles swept New York in four straight games.
RIP Moose. Gave me quite a relief to see another right handed hitter hit so many of his HR's to right field.
That card should have had the picture of the ball going off of Canseco’s head.
RIP, Moose.
Good memories of Moose Skowron at first base for the White Sox in the 60’s. My favorite Sox player tho, was Mike Hershberger, a fleet-footed strong armed right fielder who tried to throw out runners at first base on line drive singles to right. Andy the Clown could make his yell “C’mon Hershberger!” seemingly last a full minute.
I fondly recall listening to Mel Allen during those days when Moose would have a good day at bat: “the Moose is loose” Allen would proclaim.
...Moose used to tell the story of him and Hank Bauer being invited to dinner with Joe D and Marilyn Monroe....Moose said he was so nervous he shaved three times
I know....
me too.....on L.I....loved my Yankees....good times...
Thanks for some great White Sox memories, 2nd Bn.
My entire family is from metro Chicago.
My parents moved to south Florida in the 1940’s.
Strange as it seems today, Broward County was almost entirely transplants from the Midwest in those days.
I used to listen to Bob Elson broadcast every Sox game on one of just three or four radio stations in the area.
And Hershberger’s arm!
I'd get to see a couple games at Comiskey during summer vacation each year.
I saw Hershberger field an average fly ball with a runner tagging on third.
My dad is beating on my shoulder saying “Watch him, watch him.”
Perfect strike to home plate.
The runner didn't even try to slide.
The stadium went crazy.
It still was back in the mid-70s when I moved there...Miami was a whole other world to Fort Lauderdale back then. That all changed starting in the 80s. Now it's all just one big googleplex.
I seem to recall Moose playing for the Senators under Ted Williams, is my old mind fading?
I swear - as I looked at the baseball card, I smelled the bubble gum and cardboard.
his BB card said he was born in 1928
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