Yogi Berra died on Sept. 22 at age 90. Yogi was a great baseball player and a great manager/coach. As a player, coach or manager, Yogi appeared in 21 World Series and won 13 of them. He played for the Yankees for 19 seasons and the Mets for two. After his playing days were over, he managed the Yankees two different times (in 1964 and 1984 and ’85), and he coached for the Yankees, the Mets and the Astros. He was an 18-time All Star and a three-time MVP in the American League. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1972. He was widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history.
A teenage friend and American Legion teammate, Jack Maguire, gave him his famous nickname because, Maguire said, whenever Berra sat around with his arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after a losing game, he resembled a Hindu yogi. The name stuck. Probably very few people knew that his real name was Lorenzo Pietro Berra. Yogi Americanized his name to Lawrence Peter, but everyone knew him as Yogi.
I remember watching the World Series in 1956. For some very cool reason (I don’t know why), Allie Allen, principal at Oconto Falls High School, had set up a TV in the gym, and we were allowed to go there if we had a study hall. So I was able to watch Don Larsen’s perfect game, the only perfect game in Major League Baseball post-season history. Yogi Berra caught that game.
Yogi’s contributions to MLB history would be hard to calculate, but he left a legacy to the American language that will probably never be forgotten. Yogi was a favorite of the sportswriters because he had countless memorable expressions and turns of phrase, most of which didn’t make any sense. And at the same time, they often seemed to have truth to them. Yogi, who quit school after the eighth grade, became known for such comments as “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
Today, we have a name for his pithy and paradoxical expressions: Berra-isms or Yogi-isms. These are colloquial expressions that lack logic, and many of them are just attributed to Berra, even if he never actually said them. Simultaneously denying and confirming his reputation, Yogi once said: “I never said most of the things I said.”
Many of Yogi’s expressions have become common. How often have you heard someone say, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over” or “It’s like deja vu all over again”?
I have lots of favorites: “When you come to a fork in the road … take it.” “No one goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” “Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.” “We made too many wrong mistakes.” “Pair up in threes.” “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
After a streaking incident at Yankee Stadium, Yogi was asked if the streakers were men or women running naked across the field. Yogi responded, “I don’t know, they had bags over their heads.” When the Yankees retired his number 8, Yogi said, “I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.”
Here’s some good advice: “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” Or, how about this: “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there” and this: “Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.”
And two of my very favorites: “I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.” And this one (about golf): “80 percent of the balls that don’t reach the hole, don’t fall in.” Hard to argue with that, right?
Yogi once said, “I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.” I think that’s what I’ll do now. After all, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
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