Berra Business; Yogi’s Best Commercials

Yogi was best known as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, catchers to play the game, not to mention a manager for several years.

Grove City, PA -(AmmoLand.com)- The word “icon” is overused these days, but it surely applies to Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, who passed away yesterday at age 90. Later in his career, he made a successful switch to the outfield, patrolling the spacious left field in the original Yankee Stadium at 37 years old. Let’s not diminish what made him that way. His plaque notes his three AL MVP awards and famous “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over” saying and praises him as “a legendary Yankee”. Unfortunately, he was unable to translate most of that to the big leagues.

Their lives ran parallel courses.

Among his boyhood friends was Joe Garagiola, who went on to a career as a major league player and broadcaster. “Yeah, I can…I know it ain’t over until the fat lady sings, and she hasn’t warmed up yet”. “Obviously he was a star and I was a backup catcher in the minor leagues, and all of a sudden I was in the big leagues, but he treated me like I had been a good player with the Yankees, nearly like I was a teammate of his”.

“Every pastor who loves baseball has probably used Yogi in their sermons”, said Whitten, pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Fla., and a longtime Yankees fan, “because pastors are attracted to one-liners”. He wouldn’t think of going to the general manager and asking for a trade. It’s a sad state when you can’t remember what you went to the garage for but you can recall that lineup as if it were yesterday.

In 1985, his firing as manager by the Yankees 16 games into the season sparked a feud with George Steinbrenner. Yogi Berra’s wife died past year after a stroke. He spent time at third base, shortstop and DH in that time, slashing.230/.285/.336 with an OPS+ of just 71. That was in the visitor’s dugout at Fenway Park in 1984, when he was managing the Yankees.

Derek Jeter would stop whatever he was doing to visit with Yogi. As far as a signature Yankees moment, I’m not sure Dale had one. I remember telling my mother that I had to move out.

Berra played for ten World Series champions and was named an All-Star 18 instances. ‘Throw it until they hit it.’ I said, ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ And he meant if the guy can’t hit it, you don’t have to set him up with pitches, just keep throwing. Not tonight. It was already a given that the Royals wouldn’t have clinched the division title that night, but still there was faint hope though not much optimism that the team would catch enough spark to get the job done.

At the end of his career, Berra became the most popular and most loved figure in baseball. “Perhaps the greatest possible testimonial to his ability will be the struggle which the Yankees owners face in trying to find a man to take his place”. Berra and the other players were granted immunity for their testimony, but this was still a huge scandal because it really brought the cocaine and amphetamines culture of the 1980s baseball clubhouse to the forefront for the first time. Each game day, around 4 p.m., I’d go to Billy’s office and deliver two reports. He also wore one of his 10 World Series rings (more than anyone else can claim) on his glove hand. “Treat everybody the same, that’s how it should be”, Berra said. Luckily for him, he cut another deal to enter a three-year pre-trial intervention program.

The rift ended in 1999, when Steinbrenner initiated a reconciliation and honored Berra with a Yogi Berra Day at Yankee Stadium on July 18. Consider it a sequence metaphorically akin to the vital, although less than life and death, role played by sports in American lives, mine very much included.

“I said, ‘You want to play that bat, play with your brothers, ‘” Berra told me.