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Moose was worried.

Bill “Moose” Skowron was one of the greatest baseball players of his time. A Chicago native and 16-inch softball legend, he played for years on the New York Yankees (28 home runs in 1961) and was best pals with Mickey Mantle. He came to the White Sox for a while to play and had been retired and working in community relations for that team when I met him in 2000.

That year, he and I were on our way to photographer Sandro Miller’s studio on the Near West Side. Moose was uneasy because, almost inconceivably, he had never sat for a formal portrait before preparing to do so for a story I was writing.

“What kind of person takes the picture?” Moose asked. “Am I dressed OK?”

He told me that his wife, Virginia, had urged him to

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