rolandp@tekgds.UUCP (07/01/83)
I just finished reading Phil Pepe's book, "The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra". The book is written to about an eighth-grade reading level (certainly not on a par with the great works of baseball literature, such as Roger Kahn's "The Boys of Summer" or Roger Angell's "The Summer Game" or "Late Innings"). Nevertheless, Pepe's book makes enjoyable reading, if only for the quotable "Berra-isms" that the book is filled with. I won't steal anybody else's enjoyment by telling any of them to you, but I do want to throw in a couple of quotes that I've heard attributed to Yogi that didn't appear in the book. (Or, at least I don't remember seeing them there.) The first dates from when Jimmy Piersall was playing with the (mostly) hard-hitting Boston Red Sox. Evidently, the Yankees and the Red Sox were having a bean-ball battle, and Piersall stepped up to the plate after several guys had already been hit. Before taking his stance, Piersall warned Yogi, "Look Yog, I don't want to get hit, so I'm warning you, don't throw at my head. I've got this bat, and if you throw at me I'll hit you with it, so no high-and-inside stuff, OK?" Yogi is said to have replied, "Don't worry, we don't throw at .200 hitters." The second is from Yogi's managing days with the Mets. After one game the Mets had won, in which Yogi gave evidence that he was using his head somewhat more than people had been accustomed to seeing him use it, Yogi answered a reporter's question with the now-famous baseball dictum: "Ya gotta remember that fifty percent of this game is ninety percent mental." By the way, did you read in Sports Illustrated a few months ago that Yogi's son Dale is following in his famous father's elocutionary footsteps? When asked how his playing style compared to his dad's, the younger Berra was quoted as saying, "Our similarities are different." I hope you've enjoyed reading these, and that this article reminds people that one of the pleasures of being a baseball fan is exchanging stories about our heroes, even if the stories are apocryphal. (After all, I cannot verify that any of the persons quoted above actually said the things they're being credited with or accused of.) So, keep those yarns coming!