If you grew up a baseball fan in San Diego in the 1950s, you didn’t have a long list of homegrown Major League heroes.
Ted Williams was No. 1. Don Larsen and Jack Harshman were top pitchers. Ray Boone took great pride in winning the 1955 American League RBI title.
And there was Bob Skinner, a 6-foot-4 outfielder from La Jolla High School who had one of the prettiest left-handed swings in baseball. Skinner was a three-time National League All-Star who played on two World Series champions and retired after 12 Major League seasons with a .277 average.
And more. So much more.
“Bob Skinner was a great baseball man,” Hall of Fame shortstop Alan Trammell remembered Wednesday. “He was just a great man, a great San Diegan all the way around.
“I’m sad, but I’m smiling right now because that’s the impact he had on me and so many other people during his life. One of the best. One of the very best.”
Skinner died Monday at the age of 94, leaving a baseball legacy as a player, coach, manager and scout. He worked in the game he loved until he was 80.
“He helped so many people in our game,” Trammell continued. “And he loved doing it.”
Bob Skinner was a La Jolla native who spent two stints coaching with the San Diego Padres. (File photo)
Like the majority of his peers in baseball at the time, Skinner did not make a modern fortune playing baseball. The major-league minimum when he was a rookie was $6,000 a year.
“We always had a full-time job in the winter,” Skinner once said. “Sometimes, I played winter ball in Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and the Caribbean. One year, I worked at Ryan Aeronautics, taking X-rays of jet engines (giving him entry to play in the winter San Diego Industrial League). Another time, I worked in the promotions department at the Union-Tribune and did sports commentary in the early days of Channel 39.”
Skinner always came back to San Diego because, he said, “this was my home.” He lived in the same house in Pacific Beach for 88 years.
Skinner played his high school baseball at La Jolla, where his father taught foreign languages. Although he had several offers to sign coming out of high school in 1949, his parents insisted that he attend college. After hitting over .400 at San Diego City College in 1950, Skinner signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
After a year in the lower minors, Skinner joined the Marines and became a military All-Star playing for MCRD from 1951 through the end of 1953.
“I got more playing time in the Marines than I would have gotten in the minors,” said Skinner. “We played year-round.”
Skinner made his debut with the Pirates a year later. And while he played with the Pirates, Cardinals and Reds in the National League, Skinner said his dream was always to represent the Padres, who were in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League at the time.
He got the chance after retiring as a player. In 1967, Skinner was named manager of the minor-league Padres, who went 85-63 and won the PCL title. “I don’t think he was ever happier than when he managed the Padres,” said Joan, his wife of 72 years. “It was really his dream job.”
Skinner started the 1968 season managing the Padres in their final minor league season and many believed he might become the Padres’ inaugural manager the following year. But in June, the Philadelphia Phillies promoted Skinner to replace Gene Mauch as manager of the big-league club (the Triple-A Padres were a Philadelphia affiliate). Skinner was replaced as the Phillies’ manager in 1969.
A year later, he returned to the Padres, now in the major leagues, helped Nate Colbert modify the swing that would make the slugging first baseman the club’s early home run leader. Skinner also served as the third-base coach through 1973, when he returned to the Pirates. He came back to the Padres as hitting coach and third-base coach in 1977 and won his only game as an interim manager when John McNamara was fired.
Skinner became part of a Padres controversy in 1978 when founding Padres president Buzzie Bavasi hired Skinner to be the hitting coach of the California Angels, upsetting Padres owner Ray Kroc.
Although Skinner’s Padres days were over, he remained a big-league coach and minor-league manager for another 15 seasons before shifting to scouting. Skinner, Roger Craig and Bob Cluck also formed the San Diego School of Baseball, which became one of the nation’s premier baseball instruction programs.
“Bob knew baseball and loved sharing his baseball knowledge and experiences,” said Cluck, a former big-league pitching coach. “His care for the game and individuals reached across ages.”