His “Yogi-isms” were repeated by presidents, Wall Street titans, comedians and anyone else who wanted to sound wise, funny, folksy – or all three.
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“When you were around Yogi, he had a way of bringing out the best in you”, said Jorge Posada, one of Berra’s successors as Yankees catcher. He was a 10-time World Series champion and was a part of not just Yankees lore but is a figurehead in the history of baseball, something that will never change and is only solidified with his passing.
“While we mourn the loss of our father, grandfather and great-grandfather, we know he is at peace with Mom”, Berra’s family said in a statement released by the museum.
Or, as he once said in expressing his gratitude for an award: “Thank you for making this day necessary”. “He will truly be missed”. In his 1986 book, The Historical Baseball Abstract, James ranked Berra the No. 1 catcher of all time in career value.
Berra started when Joe DiMaggio was in his prime and finished when Mickey Mantle was just past his prime.
“No! Say it ain’t so”.
In 1999 he was included in a list of the 100 greatest baseball players compiled by Sporting News, and fans voted him onto baseball’s All-Century team. Berra said he came up to the Yankees in 1946 when Jackie Robinson broke the “color line” with the Brooklyn Dodgers. “It’s too crowded.” (In The Yogi Book, Berra recalled saying this in 1959 to Joe Garagiola and Stan Musial about a restaurant in his old St. Louis neighborhood.) Or, in the same vein: “It was hard to have a conversation with anyone, there were so many people talking”.
“I remember when I was a catcher here and he would come out and he would be there while we were doing drills and talk to us about certain things and I used to think, “I can”t believe I”m next to this guy, I can”t believe I”m in (his) presence, in the same dirt he caught in,” Girardi said. “It stuck”, Berra told the Saturday Evening Post.
ARod said before his 2009 season, the one that began with his admission of steroid use and ended with his first World Series title, Yogi told him he saw a big season ahead for him.
A silhouette of former New York Yankees Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra decorates the main gate to the Yogi Berra Stadium on Wednesday, September 23, 2015, in Little Falls, N.J. Berra died Tuesday. Today, with three of the most common surnames in baseball being Martinez, Rodriguez and Gonzalez, some managers speak Spanish.
He was sacked once again, by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, in 1985, after just 16 games.
Mets fans held up posters with one player writing Yogi’s name – on his wrist.
While stationed in Naples, Italy, Berra said he finagled a trip to Rome where he was able to find his Italian relatives.
Growing up, he was anything but a natural. They had gotten word earlier in the day that Berra’s sons traveled to be with him at his bedside. Before he could, though, the Yankees signed him. A few months ago, Lindsay mounted a signature campaign to nominate Yogi for the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his military service and civil rights and educational activism, a successful effort that now sits on President Obama’s desk.
His breakthrough season came in 1948, when he hit.315 with 14 homers and 98 RBIs while improving his fielding.
Quote: “90 percent of the game is half mental”.
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TONY DEJAK/AP Mel Stottlemyre (r.), who played under Yogi Berra (l.) on the 1964 Yankees, wishes the late baseball icon had been given more chances to manage in the big leagues.
