There’s little doubt that Yogi Berra, the legendary New York Yankees catcher who died at age 90 on September 22, was one of the greats. Before he ever suited up for the Yankees, he was at Omaha Beach on D-Day, not quite a month after his 19th birthday. And once he did step onto a major league ballfield, his outsize personality soon began to rival his exploits as a player. But the latter should not be forgotten, even if Berra’s athletic feats took second place in the remembrances last week.
Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight notes that, among all baseball players who have had 2,000 or more at bats since 1940, “No one else with a strikeout rate below 5.5 percent hit more home runs than Berra did during that period.” In a game that rewards consistency, Berra was one of the most consistently excellent players we’ve ever seen. In fact, “21 of the 35 World Series played between 1947 and 1981 featured Yogi Berra as a player, manager, or coach,” notes lawyer and baseball aficionado Dan McLaughlin. And now that we have the opportunity to watch the play over and over again on YouTube, we’re inclined to agree with Berra, who maintained for the rest of his life that he did tag out Jackie Robinson when Robinson famously stole home in the 1955 World Series. As for the umpire who ruled Robinson safe, we can only note that Yogi had a point when he said, “You can observe a lot by watching.”
As for Yogi Berra’s oddly profound solecisms (“when you come to a fork in the road, take it”), some scholars think he’s the most quoted American in history. Scrapbook friend Kevin Keating—who actually knew Yogi—published a fun piece at the Federalist on the catcher’s life:
“And our pal Frankie Crosetti had his name up there—he had just died earlier that year. Yogi turns to me and says, ‘Gee, Whitey, I sure hope I never see my name up there.’ ”
It’s safe to say millions of Americans who were touched and inspired by Yogi . . . never hoped to see his name up there, either.
