MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2015

YOGI — THE BIG LITTLE FELLOW!

There are occasions that compel one to fall in line with everyone else. Hence, this week I’m doing exactly that.  Like countless writers all over America, I’m paying a fond tribute to a remarkable human being. I’m doing so with gladness and sadness, with a smile and a tear, with longing for yesteryear, but as one who is at peace with the completion of the “Yogi Berra story.”

The story began on Tuesday, May 12th, 1925 in the Italian working class section of St. Louis, Missouri.  The third of four children born to bricklayer Pietro and Paulina Berra, his full name was Lawrence Peter Berra.  His original nickname given by Mama Berra was “Lawdie.”  The nickname we all know and love, Yogi, was given to him as a teenager by Bobby Hoffman, a neighbor boy.  After seeing a movie featuring an Indian snake charmer, young Hoffman (who also later played major league baseball in New York for the Giants) remarked that the Indian Yogi snake charmer “walks and looks just like Lawdie Berra.”  The name stuck.

Yogi’s best friend growing up in St. Louis was Joe Garagiola who was born on Friday, February 12th, 1926, a little less than seven months after Yogi.  At age 16, Joe was offered a $500 contract to sign with the hometown St. Louis Cardinals.  The Cards offered Yogi $250 to sign also, but Yogi turned them down.  Following the Yankee’s loss to the Cardinals in the 1942 World Series, the Yankees offered 17-year-old Yogi Berra $500 to sign with them and Berra snapped it up.  Ironically, it was Joe Garagiola who was the first to play in a World Series. The next year, Yogi played in the 1947 series against the Brooklyn Dodgers and made a name for himself in World Series history.  In the third game held at Ebbets Field on Thursday, October 2nd, 1947, Yogi became the first player in World Series history to hit a pinch-hit home run.  It was a solo shot in the seventh inning off Ralph Branca.  Yogi played in fourteen World Series of which the Yankees won ten.  During a banquet speech in 1954, Joe Garagiola quipped, “You know, Yogi has never really experienced the finer things in life. For instance, Yogi has never watched a World Series game on television!”

Just before spring training in 1949, Yogi married Carmen Short, a pretty young St. Louis waitress.  They went on to have three sons, Tim, Larry and Dale.  Dale would one day briefly play shortstop for the New York Yankees while his father was the Yankee’s manager.

Yogi’s easygoing way often masked his competitive intensity, an essential aspect of anyone’s personality who competed as successfully as Yogi did throughout his eighteen seasons as a Yankee catcher and occasional outfielder.  As entertaining and thought-provoking as Yogi’s observations and malapropisms came to be, they made an impression because of his success as a top flight professional on a continuously successful championship team.

Perhaps in recent years former opponents such as Carl Erskine, Hank Aaron, Bill Mazeroski, Willie Mays and even Sandy Koufax have chuckled at Yogi Berra stories and Yogi-isms along with the rest of us, but you can bet your Topps Yogi Berra baseball card that there was nothing funny when the 5 foot 7 inch, 195 pound Yogi Berra stepped to the plate -- especially when the bases were occupied by his Yankee teammates.  Although Yogi wasn’t built like your prototype athlete, he was as quick as a cat behind home plate. In fact, he was sufficiently fast enough on the bases to score from first base on a double. Although he stole only 30 bases during his nineteen major league seasons, his speed was adequate enough to cover enough real estate in the outfield to justify keeping his late 30’s bat in the early 1960s Yankee’s lineup with Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Bill Skowron and Elston Howard.

Yogi was dead serious on the diamond, but off the field he demonstrated almost daily what his great Brooklyn Dodger catching opponent Roy Campanella observed about baseball players: “You’ve got to have a lot of little boy in you to play this game!”

Thus, Yogi was a natural to advertise the chocolate drink Yoohoo and he was enough of a celebrity to do commercials for Camel cigarettes and The Money Store along with his friend and fellow Yankee Phil Rizzuto.

Since everyone is sharing Yogi stories in part to ease their sadness, here are a few of my favorites.

It was especially hot during spring training in 1957.  After a game one day, Yogi emerged from the Yankee clubhouse in a seersucker suit.  Spying Yogi, the wife of Yankee’s owner Dan Topping, a gorgeous beauty, asserted,   “You look nice and cool, Yogi!”  Yogi’s response was: “You don’t look so hot yourself, Mrs. Topping!”

One day when Carmen Berra was out of the house and Yogi was home with his three boys, there was a knock at the door.  One of the boys called to his father who was upstairs to tell him that two men were at the door about the “venetian blind.”  Yogi, apparently thinking that the two gentlemen were soliciting for the blind people of Venice, Italy replied, “Ah, give ’em a couple of bucks and send ’em on their way!”

During the off-season between 1984 and 1985, Yogi’s lifelong pal Joe Garagiola dropped by the house for an evening of food, perhaps a few libations, and some baseball talk.  Yogi proceeded to tell Joe about what it was like to manage under the notorious George M. Steinbrenner.  There were stories about their differing evaluations of players.  There were stories about late night and early morning calls from the boss over changes in the lineup.  Finally, there were Steinbrenner’s complaints about Yogi’s strategies during games.  The more Yogi talked, the hotter Joe got in defense of his old friend.  Finally, Joe told Yogi that he ought to remind the owner about which one of them actually played major league baseball.  Joe further advised Yogi to remind “the boss” who it was who had managed World Series games and was in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  “You’ve gotta tell him off,” Joe finally insisted with considerable heat.  Yogi took another sip of his drink and replied:  “Aw, no, Joey, I can’t do that. George and I just agree different!”

Yogi and Carmen were very close.  She was always looking out for Yogi’s best interests.  Although she rejected the idea of naming their firstborn Yogi, Jr, she herself always called her husband “Yogi.”  However, according to Joe Garagiola, after 30 years of marriage, Carmen received an anniversary card signed “Yogi Berra.”  “Why,” she demanded of her husband, “do you sign your last name to my anniversary card?  Do you think I might get an anniversary card from another Yogi?”

Yogi’s life, as magical as it seems to have been at times, had its low points.  There was his childhood poverty, the gibes he took as a young player from teammates and other players for his looks and undoubtedly for his ethnicity.  There was the shabby treatment he received after the 1964 World Series when he was suddenly and dramatically fired by Yankee General Manager Ralph Houk.  There was the cold way George Steinbrenner fired him in 1985 which caused Yogi to stay away from Yankee Stadium for fourteen years. Finally, there was the disappointment Yogi must have experienced as a parent and a professional when his son Dale was charged with using drugs during the 1980s.

Mostly, however, there has been that special magic.  That magic consists of an abiding trust, respect, and love from his fellow professionals, as well as from plain people everywhere who appreciate that combination of talent, hard work, and wisdom which that big little fellow from that working class hill in St. Louis demonstrated throughout 69 years.

Yogi Berra first appeared in a major league game on Sunday, September 22nd, 1946.  On Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 at age 90 years plus 143 days, Yogi passed into another dimension beyond our ken.

His plaque is in The National Baseball Hall of Fame.  However, his deeds will remain in all of our hearts as long as we live!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY