Bill ‘Moose’ Skowron, hero of the Yankees’ 1958 World Series team, dead at 81 from congestive heart failure

Skowron, the Yankees regular first baseman from 1955-62, was a five-time All-Star

By Bill Madden                                                                                                                                        New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports
April 27, 2012

Bill ‘Moose’ Skowron (r.) is pictured with Roger Maris, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle after the four sluggers are named to the 1960 American League All-Star squad. (Charles Hoff/New York Daily News)

Bill (Moose) Skowron, the hulking and popular Yankee first baseman of the 1950s and ’60s and the hero of their come-from-behind 1958 World Series triumph over the Milwaukee Braves, died of congestive heart failure early Friday morning at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Ill. Skowron had also battled lung cancer for several years. He was 81.

Skowron, a five-time All-Star, was the Yankees’ regular first baseman from 1955-62, averaging 18 homers and 75 RBI as a Bomber. He finished his career with a .282 average, 211 homers and 888 RBI. He was especially lethal in the World Series, hitting .293 with eight HRs and 29 RBI in 39 games over eight Fall Classics.

In the 1956 World Series, Skowron had been held hitless by the Dodgers until the seventh game when he came to bat with the bases loaded in the seventh. He hit a grand slam into the left field stands to break the game open. Two years later, Skowron spurred the Yankees to rally from three games to one against the Braves by singling in what proved to be the winning run in the 10th inning of their Game 6 4-3 victory. He then hit a decisive three-run eighth-inning homer off Yankee killer Lew Burdette for the 6-2 Game 7 win.

It was after that Series that Skowron revealed that his nickname was not due to his bulky 6-foot, 200-pound frame but because when his grandfather gave him a short haircut, his grade school classmates thought he looked like Benito Mussolini and began calling him “Moose.”

Skowron went to Purdue on a scholarship as a fullback and punter. After his freshman year, however, he felt his calling was baseball and signed a $25,000 bonus as an outfielder with the Yankees in 1951.
After Skowron hit .341 and led the American Association in homers (31) and RBI (134), the Yankees were sold on his bat, but not so much on his glove. (“I almost got killed in the outfield,” Skowron later said. “I couldn’t go back on balls and I didn’t get good jumps on them.”)

It was decided to move him to first, but at the time the Yankees had future Hall of Famer Johnny Mize and Joe Collins there, so they sent Skowron back to Kansas City.

In the meantime, they enrolled him in the Fred Astaire dance school in an attempt to make him more nimble around the bag.

“It helped me a lot with my footwork,” Skowron said, “and it didn’t hurt me socially, either.”

When Skowron finally did get called up in ’54, he batted .340 in 87 games, platooning with Collins. He hit over .300 his next three seasons and became entrenched at first base.

His career, however, was plagued by injuries — in 1957 he missed 30 games after damaging his back lifting an air conditioner; in 1955 he was out for more than 40 games with a torn thigh; and in 1959 he missed half the season with a broken arm suffered in a collision with the Detroit Tigers’ Coot Veal.

His battles to stay in the game were ironic given the advice he got from a Yankee first baseman of the past, Wally Pipp.

“I met Pipp at an Old-Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium,” Skowron recalled, “and he told me: ‘Don’t ever get a headache or catch a cold. I got a headache once and took a day off and never played again. A guy named Lou Gehrig took my place.’ I made sure from that day on to do everything I could to remain healthy.”

After the 1962 season, the Yankees traded Skowron to the Dodgers for pitcher Stan Williams in order to make way for Joe Pepitone. The deal quickly came back to haunt them in the ’63 World Series when Skowron led the Dodgers’ four-game sweep over the Yankees, hitting .385 with a homer and three RBI.

That spring, Skowron was charged with assault when he left the Dodgers spring training camp in Vero Beach, Fla., and paid a surprise visit to his house in Hillsdale, N.J., where he caught his then-wife in bed with another man.

He played for three other clubs, including his hometown White Sox, and retired in 1967.

In recent years, he worked as a greeter in the U.S. Cellular Field suites for the White Sox. He is survived by his second wife, Cookie; two sons, Greg and Steve; and a daughter, Lynnette.

“Moose was a guy who brought huge joy to everyone he came in contact with,” said White Sox board chairman Jerry Reinsdorf. “I can’t tell you how much people here loved him.”