Bob Skinner, an All-Star left fielder and two-time World Series champion as a player, passed away on Monday at age 94. The Pirates announced the news this afternoon.
“As a member of the 1960 World Series championship team, Bob was an important part of one of the most beloved teams in our storied history and helped deliver a moment that will forever be woven into the fabric of our city,” Pirates owner Bob Nutting said in a press release. “Bob was a talented player, a proud Pirate and a respected member of the baseball community. On behalf of the entire Pirates organization, we extend our deepest condolences to Bob’s family, friends and all those who knew and loved him.”
Skinner played parts of 12 seasons in the big leagues, the majority of which came in Pittsburgh. A native of La Jolla, California, Skinner played a season at nearby San Diego Junior College. The Pirates had scouted him since high school and added him on a minor league deal in 1951. Skinner played one season in the minors before being drafted into the Marines during the Korean War. He was stationed in San Diego and played for his base team but was out of the professional ranks for two seasons.
After the conclusion of his service, Skinner returned to the Pirates for the 1954 season. He made his MLB debut that year but struggled as a rookie, leading the Bucs to send him back to the minors in ’55. Skinner made it back to the Majors one year later and finally settled in during his third MLB season, breaking out by hitting .305 in 1957.
Skinner took another step forward during the ’58 campaign. He hit .321/.387/.491 and drove in 70 runs to earn his first All-Star selection and some down ballot MVP support. That’d be his best statistical season, but the left-handed hitter returned to the All-Star Game in 1960. More importantly, the Pirates would go on to defeat the Yankees in a classic seven-game World Series for the franchise’s first championship in 35 years.
After a middling 1961 season, Skinner set a career high with 20 homers while batting .302 in 1962. The Pirates would traded him to the Reds a year later. Cincinnati dealt Skinner to the Cardinals midway through the ’64 campaign, a move that paid off handsomely for him personally. Although he was a role player by that point, he won his second career World Series when the Cards defeated the Yankees in another seven-game Fall Classic. Skinner went 3-4 as a pinch-hitter in that series (though all of his hits came in the St. Louis losses).
Skinner’s playing career ended after the 1966 season. That wasn’t close to the conclusion of his time in baseball, however. He jumped right into minor league managing and would up as an MLB skipper by 1968. The Phillies hired him to replace Gene Mauch midway through that season. Skinner himself was fired less than a year later as Philadelphia got out to a rough start to the ’69 campaign.
He had a brief stint as an interim manager with the Padres in 1977 but spent most of the decade as a hitting coach. That included a return to Pittsburgh in 1979, when the Bucs won another World Series. Skinner worked on the Braves’ coaching staff and as a minor league manager and scout with the Astros after that, remaining in baseball until 2009.
Skinner finished his playing career as a .277/.351/.421 hitter. He topped 100 home runs and tallied nearly 1200 hits while recording 531 runs batted in. MLB Trade Rumors sends our condolences to Skinner’s family — including his son Joel, a former MLB catcher and manager — loved ones, friends, and the countless people whose lives he impacted over his lengthy run in baseball.
