RIP Yogi Berra

[OZZIE4DUKE]

It's finally over for him. He was a great Yankee, and even a better person.

[OldPhiKap]

Remember -- if you don't go to his funeral, he won't come to yours.

Not a Yankee fan but always admired Yogi.

[devildeac]

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

[devildeac]

Charles Shackleford, take note:

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."

[Tripping William]

He never said most of the things he said.

[gurufrisbee]

"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."

I use that every single year in my math class.

Today, when I come to the fork in the road, I'm taking it for you Yogi. RIP.

[devildeac]

He never said most of the things he said.


"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."

I use that every single year in my math class.

Today, when I come to the fork in the road, I'm taking it for you Yogi. RIP.

These are some of the reasons I come to DBR: I can observe a lot just by watching.

[OldPhiKap]

"You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six."

I use that every single year in my math class.

Today, when I come to the fork in the road, I'm taking it for you Yogi. RIP.

"No one goes to that restaurant anymore. It's too crowded."

[elvis14]

"A nickel aint worth a dime anymore"

You know you are something special when you're a Yankee and people still like you. Yogi was special like that.

[Tripping William]

I can observe a lot just by watching.

I tell my son this ALL the time.

I had forgotten that Yogi was originally from St. Louis. I was in STL recently and, man, it gets late early out there. :o

[killerleft]

"Half the lies they tell about me aren't true."

Warner Bros. actually got away with naming their new cartoon bear after Yogi in 1958, saying it was only a coincidence that the names were 'similar'. He was a great person and character. And what name in the crowded field of America's famous nicknames outshines the beautifully lyrical Yogi Berra?

I'll miss him. The only Yankee of the era I couldn't learn to hate:)

[Tom B.]

There's a lot to love about Berra, but I still think one of the coolest things about him is the fact that for almost 60 years now, he's still the only guy to catch a perfect game in the World Series.

Berra was also at the center of another iconic World Series moment, when Jackie Robinson stole home in the 1955 World Series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR2gnABXhA

[jimsumner]

There's a lot to love about Berra, but I still think one of the coolest things about him is the fact that for almost 60 years now, he's still the only guy to catch a perfect game in the World Series.

Berra was also at the center of another iconic World Series moment, when Jackie Robinson stole home in the 1955 World Series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFR2gnABXhA

And Berra always insisted that Robinson was out.

Yes, Yogi was one-of-a-kind. Even Yankee haters loved him.

And I'm a Yankees fan, so you can imagine how I feel about him.

And let's not forget he was a great player. A great catcher, a marvelous clutch hitter.

And he saw action on D-Day. He was in the Navy.

Funeral orators always talk about a life-well-lived. Lawrence Berra had a life well lived.

RIP indeed.

[budwom]

possibly the last five foot seven inch Hall of Fame catcher you'll ever see...Yogi, and especially his son Dale, used to hang out next door to me when I was a kid...

[duke79]

One of my favorite "Yogi quotes":

"Making predictions is very hard, especially about the future"

[sagegrouse]

One of my favorite "Yogi quotes":

"Making predictions is very hard, especially about the future"

Or, "It's so crowded, no one goes there any more."

Yogi wouldn't have been recognized as philosopher without the involvement of his boyhood friend, fellow ML catcher and announcer, Joe Garagiola.

My third point is that Yogi was one of the best "bad ball" hitters of all time.

[Tom B.]

And Berra always insisted that Robinson was out.

There's a story going around that Berra once autographed a copy of the famous picture of Robinson stealing home for President Obama with the inscription:


Dear Mr. President,

He was out!

Yogi Berra

I don't know if that's a true story -- but if it's not, it should be.

[94duke]

RIP, Yogi Berra.
I love this one.
"...and they give you cash, which is just as good as money."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS83HdpzxDU

[devildeac]

RIP, Yogi Berra.
I love this one.
"...and they give you cash, which is just as good as money."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS83HdpzxDU

But, but, but-from elvis14 above:




"A nickel aint worth a dime anymore"

[Olympic Fan]

I hate that so much focus is on Berra's comic malapropos and not on the fact that he was probably the second best catcher in baseball history.

Grew up in poverty on "The Hill" in St. Louis, across the street from another Italian-American catcher. When Branch Rickey signed Joe Garagiola for a $500 bonus, but he only offered Berra $250 ... an offended Berra held out for $500 and finally got it from the Yankees.

Enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor and served on a landing boat at Omaha Bench on June 6, 1944 ... he earned the Purple Heart, but refused it because he didn't want to worry his mother.

Came up to the Yankees for seven games in 1946 -- and homered in his first two games.

He played 83 games in 1947 and was so impressive that he finished 15th in the MVP vote. He was behind the plate for Bill Beven's near no-hitter in the world series.

The truth was, when he came up, Berra was a great hitter and a terrible defensive catcher. In 1948, Bucky Harris played almost as much the outfield than behind the plate. Before the 1949 season, new manager Casey Stengel brought in HOF catcher Bill Dickey to tutor Berra and within a year, he was regarded as the best defensive catcher in the AL.

The best way to measure the respect he engendered was to look at the MVP votes in his prime -- he won three MVPs, but finished second twice, third once, fourth once and top 15 six other times.

He was the best bad-ball hitter in baseball history -- and a slugger who never struck out 40 times in a season.

He was the greatest winner in baseball history -- he played on 14 pennants and 10 world championships ... he managed two pennant winners that each lost the seventh game of the world aseries (the 1964 Yankees and the 1973 Mets). God knows how many rings he earned as a coach for the Yankees, Mets and Astros. He was one of the great World Series performers in history, peaking in 1956 when he drove in 10 runs in the seven games and caught Larson's perfect game.

He was a great family man, who married the third woman he ever dated and stayed married to her for the rest of his life. Although derided as dumb, he was the first player to use a full-time agent to manage his off-field income and became a multi-millionaire because when Yoo-Hoo Cola wanted to hire him as a spokesman, he insisted on a slice of the ownership instead of a fee.

Yeah, he said a lot of funny things -- he's the most quoted non-President in American history (President George Bush once told his speechwriters that he'd rather they include Berra quotes than quote from Thomas Jefferson in his speeches). And even though most of his famous sayings sound like malapropos, if you think about them, most make a weird kind of sense. For instance, his most famous quote: "It ain't over 'til it's over". And even his quote "It gets late early out there" (he was talking about the notorious sun field in the old Yankee Stadium). His quote denying he said many of the things he is supposed to have said is, "I didn't say half the things I said."

But he did have some whoppers: A week after Steve McQueen's death, he walked into the Yankee Clubhouse and saw a McQueen movie on the TV and said, "He must have made that one before he died."

But my favorite Yogi-ism was his last. About a year ago, he was interviewed by CNN and as they tried to get him to reflect on his life, he said, "If I had to do it all over again, I'd do it all over again."

What a great epitath for a great life. RIP, Lawdie.

PS BTW, I agree with Yogi -- Jackie WAS out on that play.

[Ggallagher]

First - please understand I intend no offense or disrespect by the following - it's just what my immediate reaction happened to be earlier today.

I was walking through the den while my wife was watching the news this evening. I heard whatever newscaster was on the screen say,"....the man who has touched the hearts and minds of millions......"

So I turned around to stop and hear what he was going to say about Yogi - but he was talking about the Pope.

I hope Yogi gets a smile out of that. He was a real, honest to goodness one of a kind person.

[BD80]

So does this mean it's over?

[devildeac]

So does this mean it's over?

It's not over until we say it's over.

Oh wait, wrong character:o.

[Blue in the Face]

There's a lot to love about Berra, but I still think one of the coolest things about him is the fact that for almost 60 years now, he's still the only guy to catch a perfect game in the World Series.
Kind of a cool side note to that - at Yogi Berra Day in 1999, the ceremonial first pitch was Larsen throwing to Berra, who borrowed Joe Girardi's glove. Girardi then caught David Cone's perfect game.

[Billy Dat]

Here are some more Yogi quotes that I didn't see on this list:

-“It’s deja vu all over again.”
-“I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.”
-“Never answer an anonymous letter.”
-“We made too many wrong mistakes.”
-“The future ain’t what it used to be.”
-“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”
-“It gets late early out here.”
-“If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.”
-“Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
-“Pair up in threes.”
-“Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel.”
-“I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”
-“I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.”
-“I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads.”
-“I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.”
-“I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”
-“I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
-“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
-“I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house.”
-“So I’m ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face.”
-“Take it with a grin of salt.”
-(On the 1973 Mets) “We were overwhelming underdogs.”
-“The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.”

[devildeac]

Here are some more Yogi quotes that I didn't see on this list:

-“It’s deja vu all over again.”
-“I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.”
-“Never answer an anonymous letter.”
-“We made too many wrong mistakes.”
-“The future ain’t what it used to be.”
-“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”
-“It gets late early out here.”
-“If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.”
-“Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
-“Pair up in threes.”
-“Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel.”
-“I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.”
-“I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.”
-“I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads.”
-“I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.”
-“I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.”
-“I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
-“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
-“I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house.”
-“So I’m ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face.”
-“Take it with a grin of salt.”
-(On the 1973 Mets) “We were overwhelming underdogs.”
-“The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.”

Great list. The other little league quote I saw was: "I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the parents off the streets."

[Mal]

I hate that so much focus is on Berra's comic malapropos and not on the fact that he was probably the second best catcher in baseball history.

Totally agree. It's unfortunate that his post-playing public persona was so endearing that that's all a lot of people seemed to remember about him. He is getting the great player tribute yesterday and today, though, in most of the outlets I've seen.


The best way to measure the respect he engendered was to look at the MVP votes in his prime -- he won three MVPs, but finished second twice, third once, fourth once and top 15 six other times.

Measuring respect, yes. But I hesitate to mention MVP votes at all, because you're risking obscuring how outstanding his overall performance was by pointing to a really flawed, sportswriter-driven thing that was even more faulty back in those days than it is now. A lot of people think of him as just some better version of Jorge Posada, who got to tag along with DiMaggio and Whitey Ford and the Mick and picked up a bunch of titles and NYT cover pages doing so. That's obviously a shame and totally unwarranted, but I think the better way of getting through to those folks is simply to say "358 homeruns, struck out less than once a week, almost unanimously one of the two best catchers in history."

Yogi's playing performance was enough to put him in the MVP conversation most seasons, but relying on MVP votes given to a Yankee in the 1950's is going to skew things. For starters, there were only 8 teams in the AL at the time, of course, and 5 of them were located in Boston, Philly, D.C., Cleveland and NY (which was more the center of the media and baseball universes than it is now). Throw in the Yankees' dominance on the field, and in 1955, for instance, you have 6 (6!) Yankees in the top 15 in the MVP vote. Were they a phenomenal team? Yes. But Tommy Byrne had a 1.400 WHIP and 0.9 WAR and finished 14th in MVP voting. Berra won the award with a .819 OPS over Al Kaline, who hit .340 with the same number of homers (27) as Yogi and an OPS 150 points higher. Premium defensive position isn't worth that much. [Aside, however - it's not just NY bias, as evidenced by the fact that Mickey Mantle hit 39 homers, had an OBP of over.430, walking 113 times, and slugged over .600 but finished fifth in the MVP race. That would be considered a joke today]. In Berra's first MVP season, 1951, Yankees comprised half of the top 12 in the voting, and Berra ran away with the race despite having an OPS 80 points lower than Minnie Minoso, who finished 4th. I've not looked at the numbers for every year, but it appears to me like finishing 10-15 in the MVP vote as a Yankee in Yogi's day was often equivalent to finishing somewhere between 4th and 6th in the Yankees MVP race.

[Olympic Fan]

Yogi's playing performance was enough to put him in the MVP conversation most seasons, but relying on MVP votes given to a Yankee in the 1950's is going to skew things. For starters, there were only 8 teams in the AL at the time, of course, and 5 of them were located in Boston, Philly, D.C., Cleveland and NY (which was more the center of the media and baseball universes than it is now). Throw in the Yankees' dominance on the field, and in 1955, for instance, you have 6 (6!) Yankees in the top 15 in the MVP vote. Were they a phenomenal team? Yes. But Tommy Byrne had a 1.400 WHIP and 0.9 WAR and finished 14th in MVP voting. Berra won the award with a .819 OPS over Al Kaline, who hit .340 with the same number of homers (27) as Yogi and an OPS 150 points higher. Premium defensive position isn't worth that much. [Aside, however - it's not just NY bias, as evidenced by the fact that Mickey Mantle hit 39 homers, had an OBP of over.430, walking 113 times, and slugged over .600 but finished fifth in the MVP race. That would be considered a joke today]. In Berra's first MVP season, 1951, Yankees comprised half of the top 12 in the voting, and Berra ran away with the race despite having an OPS 80 points lower than Minnie Minoso, who finished 4th. I've not looked at the numbers for every year, but it appears to me like finishing 10-15 in the MVP vote as a Yankee in Yogi's day was often equivalent to finishing somewhere between 4th and 6th in the Yankees MVP race.

Bill James once made the comment that baseball writers spent most of the 1950s figuring out ways NOT to giver Mantle the MVP. That's another whole thread -- how many times he deserved it and how few times he got it (three -- 1956, 57 and 62). You mention 1955 ... but what about 1961 -- the year Maris won MVP with his 61 home runs. But Mantle was significantly better than Maris in almost eery other significant category: OPS (1.135 to .993), OBP, SLUG.

Part of the problem was that the writers in those days did not have access to the basic sabremetric numbers. You cite WHIP and WAR (a fatally flawed stat). Didn't exist in the 1950s. Neither did OPS, OBP or SLUG (well, they existed, but nobody paid any attention).

I will say that from the early 1930s to at least the mid-1960s, the voters bent over backwards to give the award to players on the pennant winning teams. That did favor New York, since the won all the time, but not always. My favorite is 1934, when Lou Gehrig won the triple crown with fantastic numbers (49 HR, 166 RBI, .363 BA). He also led the league in OPS, OPS-plus, OBP, SLUG.

He finished FIFTH in the MVP vote ... to Mickey Cochrane (2 home runs, 75 RBIs,.320 BA) ... Cochrane has an .840 OPS. His OPS plus was 117 to Gehrig's 206.

But Cochrane was perceived as the leader of the team that won the pennant, while Gehrig's Yankees finished second. That same bias was at work when Joe Gordon beat out Ted Williams for MVP in 1942.

And it was the reason that Berra did so well in the MVP vote. I cited his numbers to show (as I said) "the respect" in which he was held around the league at that time. He was widely perceived as the leader of the team that dominated the AL, dominated all of baseball. By 1950, DiMaggio was a fading icon and while Mantle arrived in 1951 as a spectacular player, he was widely portrayed as an underachiever until he won the triple crown (and his first MVP) in 1956. In that span from 1950 to 1955, the Yankees won five AL pennants and four world titles -- and Berra was widely perceived as he best player on that team. In that context, his MVP votes are richly deserved.

BTW: Berra might have been cheated out of one MVP that he deserved -- in 1950, he batted .322 with 28 home runs (and 12 strikeouts) and 124 RBIs and a .915 OPS while catching the phenomenal total of 148 games! He finished third in the MVP vote to teammate Phil Rizzuto, who hit .324 with 7 homers and 66 RBIs. I know Rizzuto was a leadoff man and not expected to drive in runs, but he scored just nine more runs than Berra (125 to 116). His OPS was .857. Both played key defensive positions and played them well.

PS If the old-time sports writers were voting this year, Bryce Harper would finish fifth in the MVP vote, despite his great numbers -- he would be derided as a member of the NL's single most disappointing team. My guess is that the voters of the '50s, voting today, would give the award to Matt Carpenter.

[InSpades]

45 times in MLB history has a player had 20 or more home runs and fewer strikeouts than home runs. Berra has 5 of those 45. For a guy who would swing at anything... he sure didn't miss much.

Hall of Fame player, 3-time MVP and most people will tell you he was a better person than he was a player.

Amazing. RIP Yogi.

[Mal]

Part of the problem was that the writers in those days did not have access to the basic sabremetric numbers. You cite WHIP and WAR (a fatally flawed stat). Didn't exist in the 1950s. Neither did OPS, OBP or SLUG (well, they existed, but nobody paid any attention).

Of course. I'd intended to include that caveat but rushed. I was simply attempting to state in modern terms that one player's season looked better than another. Perhaps if you back out to the basic stats that folks focused on in those days, performances looked more interchangeable. That said, the basic triple slash of the day, BA/HR/RBI, was still roughly predictive of some of the advanced numbers we focus on today, although you'd have to take a deeper look at things like BB's along with BA to get any appreciation of OBP, and 2B's and 3B's along with homers to get towards a sense of SLG.


PS If the old-time sports writers were voting this year, Bryce Harper would finish fifth in the MVP vote, despite his great numbers -- he would be derided as a member of the NL's single most disappointing team. My guess is that the voters of the '50s, voting today, would give the award to Matt Carpenter.

Ha! Well put, and probably correct.

[cspan37421]

So a lifetime Yanks fan told me today (at a funeral, no less) that a couple years ago Yogi was asked where he would like to be buried when he passed away. After all, he grew up in St. Louis, played in New York, coached in Houston (among others).

His response?

"I don't know ... surprise me."