Yogi Berra
Baseball player and manager; author; philosopher
Born: May 12, 1925, in St. Louis, Missouri
Lived In: Montclair, New Jersey
Died: Sept. 22, 2015, in West Caldwell, New Jersey
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2008: Sports
One of the greatest catchers and winningest players in baseball history, Yogi Berra’s accomplishments on the diamond were eclipsed only by his stature as a beloved cultural icon.
Statistically, Berra’s baseball achievements were remarkable and, in some cases, unparalleled in the history of the game. As a New York Yankee, he played in a record 14 World Series, winning 10 championships, also a record. He was selected to 18 All-Star Games and won three Most Valuable Player awards, tied for the most of any catcher. And he is one of a handful of managers to win pennants in both the American and National leagues. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
But Berra was a memorable figure for more than his playing and managerial feats. His squat frame gave no clues to his physical strength and athleticism, but his ungainliness only added to his widespread appeal. And his lack of erudition spawned what The New York Times called “a limitless supply of unwittingly witty epigrams known as Yogi-isms.”
Born Lorenzo Pietro Berra to Italian immigrant parents, Lawrence Peter Berra grew up in the St. Louis neighborhood known as The Hill. Berra dropped out of school after the eighth grade to help provide for his family. As a teen, he played American Legion ball and was dubbed “Yogi” for his resemblance to a spiritual figure from India his friend had seen in a newsreel.
Berra was just 17 when the Yankees signed him for a $500 bonus. He played one season in the minor leagues before joining the U.S. Navy in 1943. A seaman second class, Berra served on a rocket boat during the D-Day invasion in June 1944; two months later he was wounded in an assault on Marseilles, earning a Purple Heart.
After his discharge, Berra returned to baseball in 1946 as a catcher and outfielder for the Newark Bears, the Yankees’ top farm team. By September, he was called up to the Yankees and smacked a home run in his first big-league game. He appeared in his first World Series in 1947, hitting the first pinch-hit home run in the history of baseball’s championship series. From 1949-1953, the Yankees won a record five consecutive World Series, with Berra providing power, driving in runs, and adding strong leadership from behind home plate. Berra’s Yankees would win the championship again in 1956, 1958, 1961 and 1962.
During his stellar Yankees career, Berra batted .285 and hit 358 home runs; he ranks fourth among catchers for career homers. He led the Yankees in runs batted in for seven consecutive seasons (1949-1955) and set a bushel of World Series batting and catching records. To ice the cake, he caught three no-hitters, including Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series.
Berra retired as a player in 1963 and was named Yankees manager, but was fired after the team’s defeat in the 1964 World Series. In 1965, the crosstown New York Mets hired Berra as a player-coach (he appeared in a handful of games as a catcher). He coached for the Mets until taking over as manager in 1972. The following season, Berra’s Mets won the National League pennant, but lost in the World Series.
The Mets bid farewell to Berra in 1975 and he returned to the Yankees as a coach. He was named to manage the Yankees again in 1984, but was fired 16 games into the 1985 season, causing a 14-year split between Berra and the team, until Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner apologized to Berra in 1999.
The Berra legend continued to grow even after his retirement from the game, fueled in large part by the viral nature of his fractured philosophical quips. Among the most frequently quoted Yogi-isms: “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” (in reference to a popular restaurant); “When you come to a fork in the road, take it”; and, of course, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Much of Berra’s wit and wisdom was captured in “The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said!”—published in 1998.
The Yankees hung a plaque in Berra’s honor in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium in 1988. In 1996, private donors helped establish the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center on the campus of Montclair State University. A minor league ballpark, Yogi Berra Stadium, was built next to the museum. In 2015, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Berra the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2022, a documentary film, “It Ain’t Over,” executive produced by grand-daughter Lindsay Berra, compiled testimony to Berra’s superstardom from many of the greats who played with and against him.