DelBloggolo: YOGI

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Growing up as a young baseball fan, I loved the Brooklyn Dodgers. To this day I can remember all the 1955 Dodgers, their numbers, positions and spot in the batting order. In those days there were two other baseball clubs that I hated with deep intensity, the New York Giants, the bitter rivals of the National League and the New York Yankees, perennial winners of the World Series. They were rich, could buy the players they needed when the occasion called for it and had a tremendous amount of talent!

The recent talk of “Core Players” that we hear about of the recent Yankees were nothing compared to the guys of the 1950’s. They had color and talent, interesting and well hated by yours truly, they made baseball in New York City and especially in Brooklyn: interesting.

Men like Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, Phil Rizzuto and: Yogi Berra. Berra was their catcher and a damned good one too. He could throw you out if you tried to steal, and he could hit, anything you threw at him, from the pitcher’s mound or from the parking lot or the overhead El out in behind the outfield wall at Yankee Stadium.A three time Most Valuable Player, and member of the Hall of Fame!

God did I hate to see him to come up against the Dodgers and when he did he usually caused damage. But he was more than just the enemy: he was a genuine gentleman, who could let it all out against an umpire. He was a family man who raised his children and stayed with his beloved Carmen until her last breath.

He was a sailor during the big one, World War II, fought on a PT boat and was at Omaha Beach, supporting the landing.

Recently someone or some group of low life individuals broke into his museum, something he was so proud of and stole part of his life away, MVP plaques, World Series rings and memories right from his heart and soul! Someone stole from Yogi! Someone reached out from the gutter and robbed the man, a decent man who gave a great sport some wonderful and colorful history to replay over a hot stove or even in our collective minds.

I truly hope they find the low-life bastards and maybe they will. After all: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over!”

The following are some of Yogi's famous observations on baseball and life in general:

Lawrence Peter Berra's Wisdom

"You can't think and hit at the same time."

"The future ain't what it used to be."

"We were overwhelming underdogs."
Reminiscing about the 1969 Amazing Mets

"If you ask me a question I don't know, I'm not going to answer."

"I wish I had an answer to that, because I'm tired of answering that question."

"Never answer an anonymous letter."

When asked if he wanted his pizza cut into four or eight slices.

"Four. I don't think I can eat eight."

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours."

"All pitchers are liars or crybabies."

"Slump? I ain't in no slump... I'm just not hitting."

"The wind always seems to blow against catchers when they're running."

"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."

"Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical."

"Bill Dickey is learning me his experience."

"He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious."

"We're lost, but we're making good time."

"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."

"If people don't want to come out to the ballpark, how are you going to stop them?"

"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."

"In baseball, you don't know nothing."

"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?"

"I didn't really say everything I said."

"It ain't the heat, it's the humility."

"It gets late early out there."

"It's

--> déjà vu all over again."

"I wish everybody had the drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I'd never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field."

"Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets and the kids out of the house."

"Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded."

"So I'm ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face."

"Take it with a grin of salt."

"It ain't over 'til it's over."

"The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase."

"You can observe a lot just by watching."

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going because you might not get there."

"We made too many wrong mistakes."

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."