I loved to watch Moose Skowron at Old Timer’s Day. I attended three of them at Yankee Stadium and always looked out for him. Tough-looking guy but not really, bent slightly, his uniform baggy. He’d bark at reporters that he didn’t want to fucking talk and then twenty minutes later he’d be holding court in the dugout surrounded by men holding tape recorders and writing on notepads. He played the grouch but it was an act.
Ol’ Moose died this afternoon. He will be missed.
Damn.
boo.
In late August 2001 (just a couple of weeks before 9/11), my wife and 13-year old daughter were coming back to New York from Hawaii and we had a brief layover in Chicago. It was about 6 a.m. and we were changing planes when we walked into the waiting area and right past a man who looked just like Bill Skowron. And by that I mean the young Skowron from his Yankee days - he hardly appeared to have aged. I did a double-take but at first assumed that it couldn't be Moose waiting for a plane to New York that early in the morning. Possibly for Old Timers Day but it was too late in the season for that. Then I remembered that Old Timers Day had been rained out and that it was rescheduled for that very day. I told my daughter that the gentleman at the end of the row looked like one of very favorite Yankees from the late 50s and early 60s. I kind of suggested that she might want to ask him if he was in fact an Old Timer. She went up to him and then I saw him shaking his head and saying very sweetly, "No, no". So I just assumed it wasn't him until he smiled at her and said "I used to be". We then proceeded to start talking with him and, believe me, a nicer person I have never, ever met. He sat near us in coach, not first-class and kept chatting with us and wished us all well when we landed at JFK.
RIP, number 14.
[2] More like Moooooooooose!
Always loved listening to a great Moose story. Sad.
RIP Moose.
3) Great story. Thanks for sharing that, bro.