Yogi was my favorite player despite never seeing him play. I got to meet Yogi when my Dad worked at the Yahoo! plant when I was kid. He was as nice as everyone always says he was. He was the best catcher ever* and one of the best Yankees but he was also a really great man with a brilliant sense of business that was always surprising people. When his old friend Scooter (Phil Rizutto) ended up in a nursing home as his health was fading badly, Yogi went out there at least once a week to play cards with him. He use to visit and hang out at the Yogi Berra museum often and would happily talk to the visitors.
It was said of Yogi that if "He’d fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch".
Man, what an icon of the game Yogi was. I was never interested in baseball as a kid, but Yogi was always in the newsreels at the theater, so I couldn’t help noticing how engaging and talented the guy was. I guess I’m one of the many who thought he was already gone. :o
My roomate knew Yogi personally. He went to elementary and high school with Yogi’s son, Dale. Apparently Yogi was absolutely WYSIWYG. The neighborhood kids loved him (in the right kind of way). And he was very generous to his community with both his time and his money. A good man in every way.
In addition to being a great catcher, Yogi was a better manager than many people thought. He managed the Yankees in 1964, won the pennant, nearly won the World Series… and was fired right after game 7.
The Yankees had struggled most of the year, and several strange occurrences (including the famous “Harmonica Incident”) had convinced the New York media and the Yankees front office that Yogi had lost the team, couldn’t command respect, and had to be fired. The decision to let him go was made mid-season, when no one imagined Yogi could bring the team back. But bring them back he did.
Yogi was replaced by Johnny Keane, the very man who’d beaten him in the 1964 World Series. But the Yankees collapsed in 1965, en route to becoming one of the worst teams in the American League.
In 1964, everyone assumed that
The Yankees were a powerhouse that should have won the pennant wire to wire, and
Yogi’s loose managing style was hurting the team, and keeping them from achieving their full potential.
In reality, the 1964 Yankees were an over-the-hill team headed for a fall. If anything, Yogi kept the dynasty alive, and brought the Yankees one more pennant than they deserved.
He won one more pennant with the Mets, nine years later.
I love this quote: Ron Guidry: “All I know is every time I hear the word ‘baseball,’ I think of Yogi.”
Guidry had spent over a decade of spring trainings driving Yogi around and wrote a bookabout this unique and wonderful experience.
Just saw the Empire State Building is in Yankee Pin Stripes tonight to honor Yogi. Not sure how to directly link to a tweet: https://twitter.com/EmpireStateBldg
And Yogi said his oldest brother was the better baseball player. His father who was fresh off the boat Italian did not understand baseball and refused to let his son play professionally. Back then you did what your father said even when you were an adult. When it was Yogi’s turn his brothers convinced his father to let him play. He claimed that all three of his older brothers were good enough for the pros.
Larry Jr worked for a company that did work with my father for years. Unfortunately he never turned that into a meeting with the old man. The only time I saw him personally (not at Yankee Old Timers Game) was when he was in the owner’s box at a Devils game and I was sitting below him. He was treated like royalty.
When Berra attended an opening day ceremony in 2003, he watched as the scoreboard displayed the names of former Yankees who had died in the off-season, turned to ex-teammate Whitey Ford, and said: “Boy, I hope I never see my name up there.”
