# "YOGI - ISMS" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 8, 2001, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067 "2001-01-08T23:05:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/1 "2001-01-08T23:05:01Z")
I LOVE them! My favorite is “This is the earliest I’ve ever been late.” My question is, is there something in Mr.Berra’s pyschological makeup that causes him to utter these (fill in the word here, 'cause I don’t know it,) or is he just being extremely clever? Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/2 "2001-01-08T23:25:27Z")
I just think he spoke before he thought, or just never learned to organize a sentence properly! If you’re so much into Yogi-isms, I recommend (if you dont already have it) _The Yogi Book: “I 'Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said!”_ by Yogi Berra himself. It’s a hilarious read! ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/3 "2001-01-08T23:34:13Z")
“Pair up in threes” I don’t know how Yogi came up with them so easily, but I think it’s fascinating how hard it is for anyone else to do it. The closest I’ve been able to manage so far is “If he were alive today, he’d be turning over in his grave.” A yogiism is a phrase that makes absolutely no sense, and you know exactly what it means. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/4 "2001-01-08T23:34:30Z")
Were those “Yogiisms” merely slips of the tongue or were they intentional? I think that’s a matter for GD. I believe that he may have said one or two at the beginning which he did not intend to be funny, but then he intentionally began saying those things. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/5 "2001-01-08T23:51:55Z")
One of my favorites…but I forget how it goes, exactly…is “We tried to tell them it couldn’t be done, but they did it anyway”. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/6 "2001-01-09T00:01:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by barbitu8 \* > \*\*Were those “Yogiisms” merely slips of the tongue or were they intentional? I think that’s a matter for GD. \*\* I admit I am still trying to “get a handle” on what goes where on this board, so if the moderator feels the question needs to be on Great Debates, then please move it there, and I thank you for your patience. Q ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/7 "2001-01-09T00:03:08Z")
I love the Berra wit, too, but I wonder how many we can post without Manny telling us not to post copyrighted material. Nott ---
**Author:** ![WillGolfForFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/82dd89/32.png) [@WillGolfForFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillGolfForFood)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/8 "2001-01-09T00:09:39Z")
(referring to a suggested nightspot) “Nobody goes there anymore - it’s too crowded.” (referring to a rival ballpark) “It gets late pretty early out there.” ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/9 "2001-01-09T00:13:11Z")
Sam Goldwyn could give him a run for his money: “Our comedies are nothing to laugh at” “A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on” “Let’s have some new cliches” “I don’t think anyone should write his autobiography until after he’s dead” I have a book at home which I used to keep in my office - “The \ stupidest things ever said”, where \ was some value I forget. It had special sections for Yogi Berra, Sam Goldwyn, and Sir Boyle Roche, an 18th century Irish MP with a penchant for hilariously incompatible use of metaphors. Many of the things attributed to Berra probably weren’t said by him, but a lot of them were. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/10 "2001-01-09T00:33:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by QUASIMODEM \* > \*\* …if the moderator feels the question needs to be on Great Debates, then please move it there, and I thank you for your patience. > > Q \*\* It will probably end up in MPSIMS under a barrage of favorite Yogi-isms, but I’m going to leave it here for a while to see if one of our baseball experts (or linguistics experts!) wants to offer a historically or scientifically accurate answer. ---
**Author:** ![RM\_Mentock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/11 "2001-01-09T04:04:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yabob \* > **"I don’t think anyone should write his autobiography until after he’s dead"** I’d just reread Yogi, It Ain’t Over…, Yogi’s autobiography written with Tom Horton, when I attended a talk by Bobby Richardson, one of Yogi’s teammates on the Yankees. A section of the book talks about how Yogi sold a bunch of sporting goods to Richardson. It was in a section labeled Other Voices, and it quoted Richardson directly. Richardson related how he had visited Yogi’s home, and was surprised at how much non-baseball sports equipment Yogi had. Yogi didn’t seem to want it, so they made a deal, and Bobby took the “whole shebang,” later to determine that he paid slightly more than retail. He sold a lot of it after Yogi got into the Hall of Fame for a tidy sum. At least, that is what the book says. I asked Richardson about the story, and he was aghast. He said he was amazed when he read that part in the book because not a word was true. He’d immediately asked Yogi why he’d written that into his autobiography. Yogi said, “I dunno, I haven’t read it yet.” ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2001, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/12 "2001-01-09T21:50:12Z")
I believe Yogi always denied making up any Yogisms deliberately. But once he got a reputation for them everything he said was scrutinized and remembered, and of course, as Yogi himself (may have) said “I didn’t say everything I said.” My favorite is “We’re lost, but we’re making good time!” - which he said to his wife while driving to the Hall of Fame Game. However, the most profound is probably “It ain’t over til it’s over,” during the Mets’ 1973 pennant run, which I think he actually did say and mean. Dr. Bobby Richardson, who was one of the smartest men ever to play baseball and who was studying medicine at the time, was Yogi’s roommate on the road. The story goes that at night Richardson would study medical texts while Yogi read comic books. At lights out Yogi would put down the comic and inquire, “How did yours come out?” ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/13 "2001-01-12T00:51:10Z")
With regard to the OP, I find in _The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said_, the following quotes: By his sons, Larry, Tim and Dale Berra: > [@](#): > > **Because our father likes to keep life from becoming too complicated, he has made it an art to get to the root of any problem in about five seconds. Faced with the most complex equation, he will trim off the fat and, we marvel, come up with the easiest and most profound - and quotable - solution imaginable. That he is able to do this is a gift. The three of us just haven’t figured out what this gift is. No one has.** By Joe Garagiola: > [@](#): > > **In fact, the key to Yogi-isms is Yogi’s simple logic. He may take a different avenue than you would to get where he’s going, but it’s the fastest, truest route. What you would say in a paragraph, he says in a sentence. If you say it in a sentence, Yogi needs only one word. If you use one word, Yogi just nods. Yogi’s conversation is normal dialogue after taxes.** So there you have two assertions, by those who should know, that Yogisms are due to his own unique thought processes. Of course, Yogi was and is in reality a very smart guy. Some of his remarks were undoubtedly meant facetiously. One that comes to mind is when he was asked what cap size he needed in spring training, and said, “I don’t know, I’m not in shape yet.” One of the more memorable moments in Ken Burns’ _Baseball_ documentary is Bob Costas speculating on what an otherworldy character a conversation between Yogi and Casey Stengel might have had. “It was deja vu all over again” -Lawrence Peter Berra ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/14 "2001-01-12T04:57:41Z")
> [@](#): > > “Pair up in threes” I believe this was said by a Florida State (So. Carolina?) football coach, who also said something like, “Line up in a circle.” My own personal Yogi-ism that I made up (although I very well could have heard it off of TV and not realized it) is, when referring to someone that’s religious: “He goes to church religously.” -Dignan ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/15 "2001-01-12T05:09:28Z")
You do know that my sig line preceded this thread? I chose it just for GQ. ---
**Author:** ![DRY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@DRY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRY)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/16 "2001-01-12T07:01:16Z")
Some of the quotes were meant facetiously, some he never said, but many/most were indeed “not intended to be funny”. Another one of my favorites was when his wife was told him she was going to see _“Dr. Zhivago”_. Yogi allegedly said “Oh, really, what’s wrong with you?” ---
**Author:** ![kpm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c57346/32.png) [@kpm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kpm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2001, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yogi-isms/49067/17 "2001-01-12T14:02:12Z")
My favorite is when a streaker ran across the field. They asked Yogi if it was a boy or girl. He said he couldn’t tell, they had a bag over their head!