The Pecan Park Eagle

The Real Yogi Berra
(c) John G. Zimmerman

Recently I read writer Allen Barra’s 2009 biography, “Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee”, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Barra hit upon the right balance between objectivity and subjectivity in his assessment of the great Yankee Hall of Fame catcher, building needed assessor’s distance through his ability to see the difference between the actual man and the media myth created by sportswriters and advertisers – and yet, Barra still cared enough to dig out the true greatness of Yogi Berra as a Hall of Fame performer and masterful baseball thinker.

Barra supports the reality that Yogi did not say all the wise things he’s credited for saying as funny, but true sounding aphorisms, but that some he did say, some the writers made up, and that most are loaded with the seed of the same great obvious thought from Yogi’s original less catchy words.

Barra’s best example is Yogi’s trademark expression: “It ain’t over til it’s over.” Yogi Berra never said those exact words, of course. What he actually said in the heat of a pennant race during his tenure as manager of the New York Mets was something closer to the cliche thought-line we all know as “the game’s not over until the last man is out.”  That’s not what Berra said either, but it was closer to that old line than it was to his finally most celebrated line. Writers quoted Berra, but they kept changing his words until they morphed, or distilled down, into “it ain’t over til it’s over.” It worked. The seed for this wisdom was contained in Yogi’s original statement. The “it ain’t over til it’s over” version simply rang the public bell with far greater home-spun poetic clarity.

And so the wisdom of Yogi was born with some editorial help from certain writers. From there, it isn’t hard to see how Yogi wisdom assistance extended eventually to include these examples of Yogisms, as cited by Barra in the Appendices of his book:

Example One: During Yogi’s tenure as manager of the Mets, he attended a function at City Hall wearing a lime colored light summer suit. He was greeted by then Mayor John Lindsey’s wife, who exclaimed, “Welcome, Yogi!” – “Say,” she added, “you really look cool today!”

“You don’t look so hot yourself, Mrs. Wagner!” Yogi responded as he smiled and reached out to shake the mayor’s wife’s hand.

Example Two (from a commercial):

Yogi (in barber chair): “That’s why you need that kind of insurance.”

Man in Chair next to Yogi: “What kind of insurance is that, Yogi?”

Yogi: “For when you get hurt. – If you get hurt, and you can’t work, it won’t hurt – to miss work.”

One of my favorite sectors of the book happens late. Barra includes a comparison of some well-known thoughts of Yogi Berra to similar thoughts of some great world thinkers and shakers, The following may be my favorite among those offered – and a good way to lightly salt a Sunday column as over and out and done:

“This is the best of all possible worlds.” – Voltaire.

“Even if the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.” – Yogi Berra.

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Most of you deep blue baseball fans already know the story of how Lawrence Berra came to be known as “Yogi.”

The Real Yogi Berra
(c) John G. Zimmerman

Supposedly, he and best friend Joe Garagiola and some of their other buddies from “The Hill” Italian neighborhood in St. Louis went to a movie together back in the 1930s, as was their usual Saturday pattern when the change was available for tickets. . While they were there on this particular day, they saw one of those travelogue features that used be so popular back in the day – the kind of one-reeler narrated by John Nesbitt for a series they called “The Passing Parade.” It was a short subject serial on travel and historic events that ran from 1938 to 1949 and it was was tailor-made for the movie going public back in the pre-home TV days. – I only suggest that guess because I watched enough of these little shows myself down here in Houston during the post-WWII period of that era, I think I even saw the Indian yogi feature that altered Mr. Larry Berra’s identity forever too.

Berra and company apparently saw that one about mystics in India too. It showed a few examples of yogic teachers in India and gave the boys a “blue bayou” (blew-by-you) introduction to yoga and yogi teachers. I can just hear the walking-out-of-the-movie conversation now. It was just kids doing what kids do, but it was an interaction of ideas and words that would set in place the name of a future American icon.

Not knowing the actual names of the Berra buddies involved, I’ll simply have to give two of them fictional Italian first names and report how the conversation among friends plays out in my head. – Just one more note: Until this moment, Berra wa known as “Lawdy” to his friends. They called him “Lawdy’ because that’s the way his name sounded when expressed aloud by his Italian mother Paulina. She could not say “Larry,” the Americanized nickname for males hung with the “Lawrence” formal first name. When she tried to say “Larry,” it simply came out “Lawdy,” so that’s what the buddies chose to call him too. That is, until this date came along.

Here’s the way I hear it coming down. – Four Italian-American boys from The Hill in St. Louis are walking out into the bright July snlight from a  neighborhood movie house in St. Louis, Missouri.  It is 1938. The boys are all about 13-14 years old:

Luigi: “The movie was OK. – I like them Charlie Chan films.”

Lawdy: “Yeah, me too. I like the way they taped back that actor’s eyes to make him look Chinese.”

Joe: (tongue-in-cheek) “You mean to tell me that Charlie Chan ain’t no real Chinese detective, Lawdy? – Well, shoot! You could-a’ fooled me. I guess they got no Chinese actors out there in Hollywood.”

Mario: “I liked the short feature about India best. I liked the way them yogis just sat there, all still-like, just rolling their eyes back into all white cotton-looking balls.”

Luigi: “Yeah, I liked that too – but did you guys see what  I saw? – That one yogi looked just like old Lawdy here!”

Joe: “Oh, my Cardinal crab cakes be damned, Luigi Tomato Face! – You just nailed t! – That Indian yogi guy did – he looked just like our own little bashful Lawdy here! – From now on, let’s get off this hopeless “Lawdy” name and call our man by a word  that really fits him. Come on! Get with me on this one, guys! He’s “Yogi” from now on! – OK? – Yogi Berra!”

Lawdy: “OK by me, you guys,  but, Joe, first you gotta tell me something.- What the heck is a “Cardinal crab cake?”