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RIP… — 19 Comments

  1. I remember Yogi on the diamond as probably the most talented catcher in the history of the game. His ‘Yogisms’ are classic; “It ain’t over till its over.” perfectly describes why baseball is such a unique game. RIP Yogi Berra.

  2. Upon additional thought, I say I should have come forth with a Yogiism about baseball. So (without further ado) here it is . . .

    “Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.”

  3. And an anecdote . . .

    Yogi Berra was wonderful ‘unless you were batting,’
    [former Baltimore Orioles] slugger Boog Powell remembers
    By Mike Klingaman, The Baltimore Sun
    September 23, 2015

    Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame New York Yankees catcher also known for his entertaining “Yogi-isms,” died Tuesday at the age of 90. On Wednesday, longtime Orioles slugger Boog Powell remembered an interaction with Berra.

    “He was wonderful to be around, humble and straightforward, a no b.s. kind of guy — unless you were batting and he was behind the plate,” Powell said.

    “In my first year (1962), I came to bat at Yankee Stadium and, right away, Yogi started talking to me.

    “He said, ‘How ya doin’? Did you go out to dinner last night?’ Strike one.

    “‘Did you have a good time?’ Strike two.

    “‘What are you gonna do tonight after the game?’ Strike three.

    “My next time up, Yogi started again. I said, ‘Just a minute, Yogi,’ and hit a home run on the next pitch. The next time I came to bat, he said, ‘To hell with you, I’m never talking to you again.'”

    http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/blog/bal-former-orioles-slugger-boog-powell-fondly-remembers-yogi-berra-20150923-story.html

  4. The guy really could hit anything. I remember one game I saw on TV where the ball hit the ground before it got to the plate and Yogi hit it out of the park on the first bounce.

  5. The story goes that when Yogi was honored at Yankee Stadium with Yogi Berra Day he came to the microphone he told the crowd “I’d like that thank all the people who made this event necessary”

  6. Yes, Yogi could hit any pitch no matter how far out of the strike zone. Roberto Clemente had the same ability, Willie Mays also, to a lesser extent. I miss the America when baseball was the national sport.

  7. A genuinely great player- one of the top two or three all time at his position. RIP Yogi

    “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him”

  8. Fair winds and following seas, S1c Berra.

    For five weeks, Seaman 2nd Class Lawrence Berra and his comrades trained intensively at Little Creek. After the secret training, they were moved to Lido Beach on Long Island, then embarked across the Atlantic for a dangerous day that would change history.

    The D-Day invasion was set for June 4, 1944. But General Dwight Eisenhower cancelled the perilous operation because of torrential rain and near-hurricane winds. Yogi, a devout Catholic, never lost faith. Admittedly bothered by the tension and waiting for what Eisenhower called �??Operation Overlord,�?? the code name for the invasion of southern France, Berra believed he was too young to die. He didn�??t dwell on the magnitude of it all.

    In the still-dark morning hours of June 6, Yogi Berra�??s boat was lowered out of the Bayfield and into the English Channel. They were a few miles from the shore of Normandy, and would wind up 300 yards off Omaha Beach. �??Our job was to help soften the German defenses for the troops who were wading ashore behind us,�?? Berra said. �??We went in ahead of the LCI�??s and blasted with our rocket guys, knocking out gun emplacements and obstacles.�??

    The rocket boats worked as a team. They fanned out, 100 yards apart, then dashed right toward the beach. When the invasion started, Berra could barely see the sky because there were so many planes, flares and explosions. There was one moment when all the fire and flame of the invasion got to him and he poked his head up over the side of the LCSS. �??Get your head down�?? yelled his commander, �??if you want to keep it on.�??

    When The Longest Day ended, the Allies paid a heavy price. Luckily for Berra�??s boat, no one died during the invasion which landed the Allied troops, who eventually liberated France and helped bring Germany�??s defeat 11 months later.

    For the next two weeks, the LCSS crews worked the Channel, constantly on alert for German air raids. Then they were sent to Bizerte, Africa, preparing for another invasion of a stretch of land in France known as Yellow Beach. It was there Yogi was grazed in the hand by a German machine-gun bullet, before the LCSS rockets blew out the Nazi nest of gunners. When the Americans landed and secured the beach, Berra remembers the Frenchmen greeting them, coming out of shelled homes with bottles of wine and bouquets of flowers.

    Over the years, Berra has remained low-key about his service, as he has been as humble as everything else in his remarkable life.

    In other words, Berra was an exemplar of the Greatest Generation.

  9. He symbolizes, in word and in deed, The America we have lost, the America of the past but not of the present or the future.
    A most remarkable and wonderful man.
    The flags should be lowered to half-staff today. He is as worthy of national mourning as Reagan was.

  10. How could you be a kid in the ’50s and not love Yogi Berra? This squat, funny-looking guy who looked like anything but a pro athlete was arguably the greatest catcher ever and a three-time MVP.

    There may have been a few, though not many, ballplayers who were better but none more loved or more deserving of that love. RIP, Yogi.

  11. One of my favorite memories of Yogi, of which there were many, was when I went to “the Stadium” with my brother-in-law for a double header with the Twins. Yogi was in left field, with Twins shortstop Zoilo Versalles on first. There was a drive to the left field corner (don’t recall who the batter was), and Versalles thought it would be an extra base hit. It wasn’t. Versalles was between second and third when Yogi caught it. He pegged it, hit the cutoff man, and Versalles was doubled at first.
    Looked over the comments at espn.com, and of course somebody said that Yogi was a racist. He evidently abused black players. He didn’t cite any instances; just a blanket statement. Don’t believe that, myself.

  12. I was born and bred in Red Sox Nation, and Yogi was a satrap of the Evil Empire. As such, I wasn’t fond of Yogi as a player. But for most of his playing career, the Sox were so bad that the thought of competition between the two clubs was a joke.

    In the half century of his retirement, I became more aware of his witticisms. While they were often presented to the public to give the impression that Yogi was a lovable dumbbell, further reflection led me to conclude that he was anything but dumb. First, Yogi was a very good catcher, a position which taxes the intellect. For example, you have to know the strengths and weaknesses of hundreds of hitters. No dumbbell can be a Hall of Fame caliber catcher.

    The man had a way with words. Many star athletes are ciphers away from the playing field. All they are good at is playing ball. In addition to being a star athlete, Yogi was a master of the English language. I am reminded of Ted Williams, who away from the ballpark was a fighter pilot and a master fisherman.

    Even if Yogi Berra was a Yankee, he contributed to our lives in America, both on and off the field. He lived a good, long life.

    It ain’t over ’till it’s over. While Yogi’s life is over, many of us will remember his witticisms long after his death.

  13. My favorite Yogiism is “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

    I think he was referring to a popular nightclub that ballplayers used to frequent. But as the word got out, more and more people went there hoping to see the players. So the players stopped going there.

    It makes perfect sense if you think about it.

  14. One of my earliest memories of Berra was from 1962. I started following baseball in 1961, when the Detroit Tigers won over 100 games, but came in second to the Yankees, who won 109 games. The two teams played pretty much even up, with the Yankees taking the season series between the two teams by only one game. There were no playoffs then, so as a Tiger fan I hated the Yankees. Still do. When the Red Sox and Yankees play it’s too bad they can’t both lose.

    My father, alav hashalom, was a native New Yorker who moved to Detroit after he married my mom, but he was from Brooklyn and a Dodger fan, so he didn’t root for the Yankees.

    In the summer of 1962, the Yankees beat the Tigers 9-7, in a 22 inning game that lasted 7 hours. Berra caught the entire game. I wasn’t happy about the outcome but the thing that I remember was my father telling me how hard it was for a catcher to play what was effectively 2 1/2 games, the wear and tear it took to crouch and get up for every pitch. I figured that if my dad was impressed with Berra, he was worthy of it. Later, as an adult I found out that Berra was 37 years old at the time, an even more impressive accomplishment.

    BTW, his saying about “when you get to the fork in the road, take it,” actually made sense. His home in New Jersey was on a road that had a fork in it, but the two roads came back together before you got to Berra’s house, so it didn’t really matter which fork you took.

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