Baseball has lost one of it’s greatest characters, as Yankees legend Yogi Berra has passed away at the age of 90.
Advertisement
The former baseball player died on Tuesday night (September 22), the Yogi Berra Museum confirmed. And they’ll say, “Dad, you just said another one.’ And I don’t even know what the heck I said”, Berra insisted.
A notorious bad-ball hitter, Berra was a constant threat offensively, particularly with men on base.
In his later years, Berra was a fixture at Yankees spring training, and just weeks before his 84th birthday in 2009, he threw an historic Opening Day first pitch at the new Yankee Stadium.
Lawrence Peter Berra was born in St. Louis on May 12, 1925, the son of Pietro, a laborer in a brickyard, and Pauline Berra.
Berra’s nickname was given to him by his close friend Bobby Hofman, who compared him to a Hindu Yogi when he sat with his legs crossed waiting to bat.
In the 1955 World Series, won by the Brooklyn Dodgers, Berra was involved in one of baseball’s most celebrated plays, when Brooklyn’s Jackie Robinson stole home just under Berra’s tag.
He first played organized baseball with a YMCA team in his hometown and later played American Legion baseball.
In 1942, he and Garagiola attended a tryout for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Berra made his Major League Baseball debut on September 22, 1946 and homered in his first game.
He was also voted onto the Major League Baseball All-Century team by the fans in 1999.
He won the most-valuable-player award three times and was a 15 time all star.
In 1956, he caught the only flawless game in World Series history and after the last out leaped into pitcher Don Larsen’s arms. He also holds World Series career records for at-bats (259) and hits (71). He was sacked after leading the Bronx Bombers to a pennant win, but losing the World Series.
The apparent non-sequitur turned out to not only be true, but prophetic: Berra’s Mets wound up winning the division, beating the Cincinnati Reds – the “Big Red Machine” of Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez – in the NLCS, but took the highly favored Oakland Athletics to the seventh game of the World Series.
Advertisement
After being fired as manager of the Mets in 1975, Berra became a coach with the Yankees.
