RIP Yogi Berra

[Zvon]

Methinks you should read page 1.

[Edgy MD]

MFS62 wrote: With all the MVP finishes, he never led his league in ANY offensive category (counting stats). Not one in any one year. It will make evaluating him more difficult as time passes, and such evaluations are based solely on numbers.

Catchers don't tend to lead in much. But sure, he led in games caught. Year after year. No small thing.

[Edgy MD]

On to Yogi the player for a minute: -- 7 consecutive seasons Top-4 in MVP. From 1950 at age 24: 3rd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 2nd And, sure, the team he played on and his personality could have given him a leg up on other players who maybe were as deserving, but still -- 19 years, 414 career strike-outs (or, as it's known to some guys these days, about a season and a half). I know times and the game have changed and all, but that's an average of right around 28 for a 500 AB season and he topped out at just 38 (at age 34 in 472 ABs)

I love those strikeout numbers. How he managed to accomplish that while maintaining a reputation as a bad-ball hitter is mind-boggling.

I've met two reasonably informed adults over the last few days who thought the bear came first and the ballplayer second. Not only was Berra the original, but he had a lawsuit with Hanna-Barbera over the name. He eventually dropped it but most accounts say his case was strong and considering how long a tail the Yogi Bear character has, who knows how much he could have raked them for.

Anyhow, I've really come to believe he really earned that nickname. The pitch up at the shoulders looks good, but it's one in fifty players that can make a living swinging at it. He's the guy you let off the leash, because he was so psychologically detached, he could never screw himself up. He refused to believe in slumps. He insisted that if you went hitless for a few games, it was just the numbers evening themselves out. Other players, of course, believed something had gone wrong in their approach. They'd make adjustments, and as often as not, something would go wrong in their approach. Yogi kept it cool, and so never beat himself. He said he once went 0-24. Asked how he got out of it, he said, "I hit a home run."

The other cool thing is that Yankee recruits from the 30s to the 50s were typically lowballed — offered lower bonuses than other teams were perhaps offering, telling prospects, "Sure, you could sign with the Cubs or the Indians or the Browns, but we're the YANKEES. And anything you lose in your bonus will be small compared to what you get back in post-season money."

Of course, they never mentioned that they were signing two more top prospects at the same position, and that reaching the post-season with the Yankees was hardly guaranteed. But the rap worked on most every player. But it didn't work on Yogi. He knew how much the Cardinals had offered Garagiola. He had grown up across the street from Garagiola, and knew he had been a better player since he was seven. And he wasn't going to sign with anybody until somebody offered him more. In and age when poor teenage boys didn't have agents, and bonuses across the country weren't reported, he didn't get bamboozled, because he knew enough to bank on a single comparable.

[Frayed Knot]

25-and-under current stars who already have more career strikeouts than Berra: Giancarlo Stanton, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Anthony Rizzo

Number of times Berra K'd three times in a game: three, and one of those was the final game of his career when he came back as a player/coach after not playing for more than a year because he was managing.

[Edgy MD]

But not striking out should mean more double plays.

Except he grounded into 146, which is fewer than David Wright (for comparison's sake) in 25% more career plate appearances, while striking out one fourth as often.

They don't make 'em like that anymore.

[dgwphotography]

Edgy MD wrote: They don't make 'em like that anymore.

No, they don't.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/2013/10/yogi_berras_d-day_service_reme.html

On Saturday, Berra received the first Bob Feller Act of Valor Award, one of baseball’s ways to pay homage to the military. Feller, who died three years ago, was a star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. The day after Pearl Harbor, he walked away from a $100,000 contract to join the Navy and served aboard the USS Alabama as a gunner. “He didn’t like me,” Berra said. “One day I asked why. He said, ‘I don’t respect people who didn’t serve their country.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about? I was at D-Day.’ After that, we became best friends.”

[Zvon]

This had to be taken at a Mayors Trophy Game, right?

[fimg=400:2h46ip9x]https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Yw_ct1zTMQ8/Vg2L6FmNtEI/AAAAAAAAgmY/krTXfsWI9qU/s640-Ic42/YogiLinz.png[/fimg:2h46ip9x]

[Frayed Knot]

Only fitting that, six months to the day after Yogi, Joe Garagiola dies at age 90.



[fimg=700:1j0so5cg]http://sports.mearsonlineauctions.com/ItemImages/000040/488b6c31-4ac5-49dd-b1f1-e70cf7d5d98f_lg.jpeg[/fimg:1j0so5cg]

Berra with striped shirt in the middle (and the ears, always the ears). Joe G is lower left in the white tee.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Guest

[Zvon]

What a fantastic photo. I didn't know the two went that far back.

RIP Joe.

[Guest cooby classic]

Truly hurting.

[Frayed Knot]

Zvon wrote: I didn't know the two went that far back.

Born within 9 months of each other to Italian immigrants living on the same street, they both started in the major leagues in the same year before, as noted above, dying exactly six months apart.

What I remember him most for obviously was as his time as an announcer.
He was derided by some as a bit of an "establishment" type in the 60's when being such was anything but cool -- something he'd go on to help prove by arguing in favor of the reserve clause in a preliminary hearing in the Curt Flood case (to his later regret) -- but it's unlikely that anyone who wasn't was going to get a network job in those days and he was one of the first ex-jocks to make the move to TV when his career ended in the mid-50's. In addition to baseball announcing his TV stuff including hosting 'The Today Show', game shows, and guest-hosting for Johnny Carson, pretty much setting the template for the later ex-jocks who branched out to entertainment TV like Tarketon, or say Michael Strahan today (or even O.J. for that matter).

He went on to be the major backer of the BAT charity to help older, indigent players and worked to rid baseball of smokeless tobacco. Nice career spring-boarded from a mediocre nine-year/part-timer's career.

[Edgy MD]

And this short-lived swinging game show.

8JdeRwTAI1M

Sorta Tattletales meets The Newlywed Game meets Boring.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: Born within 9 months of each other to Italian immigrants living on the same street, they both started in the major leagues in the same year before, as noted above, dying exactly six months apart.

He often spoke about growing up with Yogi in the "Dago Hill" section of St. Louis.
I read his book "Baseball is a Funny Game" many years ago. It was my dad's. I guess it was lost when he moved, because I would have wanted to keep it. There are may stories in it that I still remember. It wasn't a "kiss and tell" book like the Jim Brosnan and Jim Bouton books years later, but still showed a side of baseball we hadn't read in the papers. It is still available on Amazon and I would highly recommend it.
RIP, Joe.

Later

[Guest d'Kong76]

I don't think I have it now, but I remember that book. Maybe I got it
through that Scholastic school book thing that was big in the 70's.

I'm in a personal feud with Amazon, but there's a bunch of them on
eBay in various conditions/editions.

[Guest cooby classic]

Scholastic is still big and fantastic!

[Lefty Specialist]

cooby wrote: Scholastic is still big and fantastic!

I like to think so- I've worked for them for 16 years. It's a place where you can be in a meeting and suddenly stop and say, "Hey, you realize we're arguing about Captain Underpants!"

Harry Potter helped pay my mortgage. (New book coming out July 31st, kids)

[Guest d'Kong76]

I used to love when the books came in, it was like christmas. I
pretty much only ordered sports related books.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I remember ordering this book. I probably still have it somewhere. I have some old boxes in my basement that have moved with me through the years and haven't been opened in decades.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Yep, that's a very familiar cover.

[dgwphotography]

I remember ordering this book. I probably still have it somewhere. I have some old boxes in my basement that have moved with me through the years and haven't been opened in decades.

I used to love getting that catalog.

I still have this one:

[Benjamin Grimm]

Oh yeah, I definitely had that Seaver book.

I think I had one for Willie Mays, too, although I can't remember the title. And I also ordered a Joe Namath book, during a brief period when I thought it might be possible that I'd like football as much as I did baseball, but that never really worked out.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I still have the Seaver book, because my Mets library is on it's own bookshelf
in my computer room/office.

[Guest themetfairy]

I remember Joe hosting Sale of the Century and emceeing the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Always a positive presence on the air.

RIP Joe - you'll be missed!

[Lefty Specialist]

We've cut way back on sports books in the past few years. The reason being, today's superstar could be tomorrow's rapist/wife-beater/nightclub shooter. Nothing like having a book on the NFL with Ray Rice on the cover.

We also have a library of every book we've ever published. I'm sure Hammerin' Hank is in there somewhere.....

[Guest d'Kong76]

Something like that would never occur to me. Sad that that's where we are.