William Joseph "Moose" Skowron Jr. (born December 18, 1930) is a former Major League Baseball player, primarily a first baseman. He is currently 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. His friends called him "Mussolini" as a joke, after his grandfather gave him a haircut which looked like the dictator's, but his family shortened the nickname to "Moose." 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 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.
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