1964 Topps #445 Bill Skowron
About Bill Skowron
Topps puts a Washington cap on #445, a series-5 card, after Los Angeles sold him to the Senators on December 6, 1963 for a reported $25,000. The back carries a wretched National League year: .203 in 237 at-bats with four home runs and 19 runs batted in, Ron Fairly having handled first base most of the season. Skowron treated the return to the American League as a clean slate, telling Washington to throw out 1963.
William Joseph Skowron, a Chicago kid of Polish descent, played fourteen major league seasons from 1954 through 1967 and spent nine of them at first base for the New York Yankees. The nickname arrived early: a crew cut from his grandfather left him looking, to his father's semi-pro teammates, like Benito Mussolini, and "Mussolini" was soon shortened to "Moose." He went to Purdue on a football scholarship, signed with the Yankees in 1950 for a $22,000 bonus, and was named The Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year in 1952. Casey Stengel platooned him at first base before he took the job outright in 1958. Skowron reached eight All-Star Games across six seasons (1957 through 1961, then 1965) and won four titles in New York, his three-run homer off Lew Burdette breaking open Game Seven of the 1958 World Series. In 1961 he, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, the Three M's, combined for a record 143 home runs. Traded to Los Angeles after 1962, he batted .385 as the Dodgers swept his old club for a fifth ring. He finished at .282 with 211 home runs and 888 runs batted in, entered the National Polish-American Hall of Fame in 1980, and worked for the White Sox as a community affairs representative from 1999 until his death in 2012.
Sources: SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 311 | 2 | 24 | 137 | 75 | 38 | 22 | 13 | 0 |
| SGC | 26 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted.
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Related cards
Team card: #343 Washington Senators
More Washington Senators cards:
- #28 Claude Osteen
- #46 Ed Brinkman
- #52 Chuck Hinton
- #92 Steve Ridzik
- #114 Don Lock
- #134 Don Zimmer
- #167 Senators 1964 Rookie Stars
- #187 Ed Roebuck
- #203 John Kennedy
- #217 Jim King
- #261 Jim Hannan
- #277 Ken Retzer
- #294 Ken Hunt
- #311 Tom Brown
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #445 card?
It is card #445 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Skowron of the Washington Senators.
Why is #445 harder to find?
It is a series 5-6 card. Cards from the fifth and sixth print series (#371-522) are a step tougher to find than #1-370; availability in 1964 runs in three tiers, not a cliff.
How many cards are in the 1964 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 589 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 587 with no gaps, and no number carries two different cards; two cards - #4, the A.L. Pitching Leaders, and #517, the seventh-series checklist - carry a catalogued back variation that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, Baseball Almanac, Baseball-Reference, the SABR BioProject and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-11.