Joel Skinner
I’ve had it memorized since my early teens. I don’t need to check to confirm, but I do so anyway before I sit down to write.
Joel Patrick Skinner.
Born February 21 - a day after my dad - in La Jolla California.
Son of former major leaguer Bob Skinner.
6’4”.
Bats right.
Throws right.
For 24 years I’ve carried the same two identically-sized items in my wallet. My now-obsolete FCC Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit and the above-pictured 1989 Joel Skinner Topps trading card (#536). They both started as pristine rectangles decades past but over time have deteriorated into faded ovals.
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Most of my friends growing up in central New Jersey were Yankees fans, our infancy coinciding with a stretch between 1976 and 1981 that saw two World Series titles (some of my very first memories) and five playoff appearances during those six years.
It was less shameful being a Yankees fan in the mid-to-late 1980s than it is now. For starters, they were terrible. A mess of awful starting pitching and poorly orchestrated free agency decisions dictated by the fickle whims of owner George Steinbrenner, which inevitably led to impetuous trades for over-the-hill veterans leaving no remaining prized prospects in development. Few of the blustery stigmas and rightfully gross associations that exist now were present.
Joel Skinner came to the Yankees in the middle of the 1987 season from the Chicago White Sox with Ron Kittle and Wayne Tolleson for Ron Hassey, Carlos Martinez and Bill Lindsey. Steinbrenner, with typical audacity, called him "the catcher of the future. "
Skinner hit a perfectly serviceable .259 in his first 54 endeavors with New York, smacking a lone home run. That stretch was in retrospect probably the high point of his tenure.
Come 1987 he backed up re-signed mustachioed veteran Rick Cerone, playing in 64 games wherein he collected just 19 hits and batted a scanty .137.
The next year he was split time with the onslaught of Don Slaught on the 1988 Yankees, a team saddled with the slogan Pride & Power that had little of either.
Yet somehow through all of this historical inconsequence, Joel Skinner became my favorite player on my favorite team.
Why did I love a reserve who was best-regarded as a "defensive specialist?" I couldn’t tell you exactly. Perhaps because we shared initials? Perhaps because I felt some teenaged kinship with the concept of the backup waiting his chance in the wings? More likely it is because trips to Yankee Stadium with my family usually came on Sunday afternoons and in those games the starting catcher would rest and Skinner would get the nod.
It seemed like every time we went to the Bronx, he would invariably go 1-4 with a hard-struck double off the outfield wall.
At least that’s how I choose to remember it.
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You know those ubiquitous shirts vendors around Yankee Stadium sell? They’re dark-as-night blue with a white interlocking NY over the left breast and a giant number adorning the back featuring the player’s name above it (something that’s never been on an actual Yankee uniform)?
They didn’t sell a Joel Skinner one, so I naturally had a shirt made at a shop one county over that could iron on his 12 for me with a block S-K-I-N-N-E-R proudly spelled atop.
I wore it frequently.
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I also collected Joel Skinner baseball cards. For a while I believe I had them all, often in duplicate or triplicate. They were easy to find in card shops and didn’t cost more than at most a quarter each. I keep them in a small plastic box in my parents' house, though it seems unlikely this collection will suddenly gain value overnight.
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Skinner’s time with the Yankees did not last long. Just before the 1989 season got underway he was traded to Cleveland for hotheaded rear pocket batting glove enthusiast and future child rapist Mel Hall.
Joel Skinner played 227 of his 564 career games with the Indians. Three years later come age 31 he was out of the major leagues. By then I had stopped following the newspaper box scores on a near-daily basis to see how he was fairing.
In his final game Joel Skinner went 0-2 before being removed for a pinch hitter. Over the next three seasons he tried to get back to the major league level, playing briefly for the AA Canton-Akron Indians and the AAA Charlotte Knights.
I assume pride kept him going while injury held him back.
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A few years later, now living in Chicago, I wrote Joel Skinner a note. (I’m unsure of the exact year. This could have been before or after I briefly sponsored his page on the Baseball Reference web site.) I think he was the manager of the Akron Aeros at the time. My letter was on a small piece of auburn paper with meticulous ink lettering. I told him succinctly that he was my favorite player growing up and I had always wanted to say as such. It was unclear what I expected in exchange. I don’t think I even asked for an autograph. I just wanted to let him know he years of service had been valued.
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Skinner signed the back of my note and mailed it back to me without adding a single word.
I was less crestfallen than I was concerned.
Did he think I was putting him on?
Did my carefully-chosen language not carry the impact I hoped it might?
Could it be those whom we appreciate sometimes do not realize that they are being honestly esteemed?
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The past 16 seasons Skinner has dutifully managed on every level, primarily a minor league skipper. He was the interim coach of the Indians for the final 76 games of the 2002 season and is ignominiously remembered around Lake Erie as the third base coach who held up Kenny Lofton trying to score the tying run in game seven of the 2007 ALCS. 30 years after working his way up through the Chicago White Sox’ farm system, his life in baseball has come full circle. Skinner is currently the manager of the same Knights he ended his playing career with, who are the Chisox’s present day Triple-A affiliate.
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In researching this appreciation I was more than a little surprised to discover a 2011 piece by Dr. Nancy Golden reflecting on when Joel Skinner was her favorite player as well. Two appreciators with eerily similar experiences existing in parallel, unaware of one another and asking nothing from Joel Patrick Skinner in return.
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Jon Solomon is a DJ at 103.3 fm WPRB, where he can be heard every Wednesday night from 7-10 pm ET. Solomon runs the label Comedy Minus One and spends an unexpected percentage of his time writing about college basketball. He has no pets. You are permitted to follow him on Twitter here.