Monday, June 30, 2008

Fordham Magazine Reviews YOGI



YOGI: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN
AMERICAN ORIGINAL
by Carlo DeVito, FCRH ’86, 412
pages. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2008.
$25.95.

At a recent Old-Timers Day at Yankee
Stadium, New York Yankees broadcaster
Michael Kay, FCRH ’82, described
Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra as "one of
the best-known faces in the world." Odd,
considering Berra’s iconic visage never
exactly measured up to the matinee-idol
looks of fellow Yankees Mickey Mantle or
Joe DiMaggio. Still, as author Carlo DeVito
shows—and as Berra, the beloved master of
malapropism, might say— Kay’s hyperbole
is no exaggeration.


In this comprehensive and appreciative
biography, DeVito, who has also penned
a biography of Wellington Mara, FCRH
’37, chronicles Berra’s many achievements
on and off the diamond, revealing the
man behind the impressive stats—and
unforgettable malapropisms.


As a player, Berra won 10 World Series
championships and three American League
Most Valuable Player awards. He later
became the fi rst manager to lead a team
from both leagues to the World Series, doing
it fi rst with the Yankees in 1964 and then
with the New York Mets in 1973. He also
kept company with celebrities like Ernest
Hemingway and Frank Sinatra and, most
recently, opened the Yogi Berra Museum
and Learning Center in Montclair, N.J.


Berra fans will be familiar with much
of what DeVito turns up but will still find
some interesting tidbits about the man’s
professional career and public life, like
his contentious relationship with Yankees
owner George Steinbrenner, who fi red Berra
as manager 16 games into the 1985 season.


More interesting, however, are Berra’s
entrepreneurial activities, including his
prescient investments in bowling alleys
in the 1950s and racquetball clubs in the
1970s, his lucrative partnership with
Yoo-Hoo and his decades-long success as a
pitchman, which earned the former Yankee
a successful post-baseball career as well as
international acclaim for his goofy affability.


In one humorous passage, DeVito
describes a golf game between Berra and
President Gerald Ford. Berra had just
opened a racquetball club in Fairfi eld,
N.J., and he wanted to impress the former
president. In typical Yogi fashion, as he
slipped him a card, which promised a free
game, he told Ford to stop by anytime.
On the other side of the card was stamped:
"Good Tuesdays Only."


That Berra could rub elbows with the
rich and powerful and still maintain his funloving,
everyman persona explains why he
has always been such a popular fi gure in and
around baseball, and why, even after several
of his own autobiographies, Berra is still
worth writing about.


Although Yogi isn’t exactly a home run,
DeVito does manage to hit one into the gap
by reminding readers that even today, as the
Yankees get ready to vacate the House that
Ruth Built and gear up for a new era in their
storied history, Yogi Berra remains the heart,
soul and, yes, face of the historic franchise.
—Miles Doyle, FCRH ’01

YOGI As Heard on The Sports Edge on KFNS in St. Louis


I was lucky enough to be invited on KFNS in St. Louis to speak about YOGI on The Sports Edge on June 30, 2008. We discussed Yogi's career as a player. I was aksed who didn't like Yogi, and the only answer I could come up with was the umpires, who complained he talked to much, argued too much, and complained about double headers (which he would do to anyone who would listen).
We also discussed his time with Yoo-hoo, and his selling soft ice-cream franchises and bowling alleys as well, and how he ended up one of the most successful Yankees of his generation.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Rio Rancher Observer Excerpts YOGI


A Day in the Life of a Baseball Player
In later years Berra would become one of the best signal-callers in the game, calling unexpected pitches here and there. Sometimes he would come back with the same pitch two and three times on a hitter who would be looking for something else. Eventually, many of the pitchers followed his lead and found that the odd little man behind the plate truly knew something of the game. Between Dickey and the pitching staff, Yogi Berra was nudged toward greatness.In the end, though, the pitchers created a monster. Berra still had the immense confidence of Stengel. And in serious run-ins with Raschi and Reynolds, they found Berra could give as good as he got.

Raschi once told Berra in a mound conversation, “Just catch. I’ll pitch.”Another time he said, “Yogi, you just get your Dago ass the hell back behind the plate.”And another time he told the catcher, “Yogi, get the hell out of here with your (expletive deleted) sixth-grade education.”But Berra could get Raschi’s goat as well.“Raschi pitched better when I got him mad,” Berra once said. Berra would approach the mound, which Raschi hated.

Berra recalled one incident, saying to Raschi, “‘You’re supposed to be a pitcher. You been pitchin’ for 15 years, and you can’t even get the ball over.’ And he would get mad at me.” But Raschi would turn his fury into a winning fastball. Berra knew what he was doing.“I think you’re losing it, Vic,” Berra would say, walking toward the mound. “Yogi, you’ll lose your sorry ass right here if you don’t get behind that plate,” Raschi would respond.But their arguments would blow over after the game, and they became longtime friends.Reynolds was also headstrong and intimidating, though he was not as difficult as Raschi.

Once while playing bocce at Berra’s home, Henrich asked Reynolds how he thought he would do in an upcoming game, and when Reynolds replied that he would do well, Henrich asked him why he thought so.Reynolds answered, without a hint of affectation, “Because I am good at all sports.”“After the season I said I was going back to the reservation, and I told him to go back to Dago Hill in St. Louis,” Reynolds said years later. Berra’s relationship with Lopat was different.

Lopat was known as a junkballer who relied on throwing slow curves.“When Lopat was pitching, I didn’t need my catcher’s mitt. A Kleenex did fine. Some days, if he was throwing well, I would need more than one,” Berra said later.Lopat’s favorite game was against Cleveland. It was hot and humid, and in an attempt to get out of their hotel rooms, the players went down to the stadium in Cleveland to take some cool showers and hang around the locker room.

But the Indians were taking early batting practice when no one was around, having their pitching staff throw them slow curves and change-ups. They were knocking the ball over the second baseman’s head. What the Cleveland players didn’t know was that Lopat had seen the whole thing. When Berra came to the park, Lopat rushed to him, saying, “No slow balls today, Yogi. Don’t even call for ’em. Fastballs and sliders only.” Lopat and Berra blew through the lineup the first time through and then reverted to the usual routine when Cleveland started looking for fastballs. Lopat won 5-3.“Counting the screwball and the curve and my fastball, and the speeds I used with each, I figured I had 11 pitches,” Lopat said years later. “Yogi only counted nine. As long as he was calling the pitches and catching them, that was fine with me.”

The one thing Berra held over all their heads was his ability to have them pulled out of games. Stengel had taught Berra a signal—Berra would pick up a small handful of dirt behind the plate, and with that, Stengel would walk out to the mound and the pitcher would eventually be pulled. When Reynolds and Raschi found out, they went ballistic. Reynolds once threatened Berra, saying, “Yogi, if I ever see you give that sign again—ever, even once—I’ll kill you. I mean it, Yogi. I’ll fight you in the clubhouse.”However, neither could deny that Berra’s opinion counted when it mattered most, and he was often kind to them, which is undoubtedly one of the toughest spots a catcher is put in.Early in the season, Stengel slowly shuffled to the mound after Raschi had given up two hits and a walk.“What about him?” Stengel said to Berra, motioning to Raschi.“He’s still got some stuff,” said Berra, “but he’s getting too cautious.” Stengel lifted Raschi and called in Tom Ferrick to close out the win for Raschi.

“I’d have let him stay in if Yogi told me to. The kid knows what the game is about,” Stengel told the press after the game.Many years later, Stengel said, “When he had to go out to the pitcher and tell him what he was doing wrong, he wasn’t bashful and he wasn’t embarrassed and he wasn’t afraid, even if it was those big, famous fellows like Allie Reynolds and Vic Raschi. He went out and he told them, and he usually didn’t have to wait for me or anybody to tell him to do it.”

It’s been alleged that Yogi Berra once said, “All pitchers are liars and crybabies.” But the Hall of Fame catcher caught some of the greatest pitchers of his era. When he was asked to choose the best pitcher he caught in his 18 years with the Yankees, he responded,“It’s impossible to pick the best. You take your pick: Vic Raschi, Allie Reynolds, Eddie Lopat, and Whitey Ford. I wouldn’t be afraid to call on either of them.”“First and foremost, Yogi Berra was a fierce competitor. It wasn’t smart to get him riled,” Yankees pitcher Don Larsen wrote years later about Berra in his prime.“Opponents were the enemy, and we pitchers certainly weren’t immune. He would chastise all of us on occasion, trying to rev us up when we were pitching poorly.”

In the end, whatever their differences and disagreements on the field, Berra became close with many of the great pitchers of his career.

And in the end, they all spoke very kindly of him.

This excerpt from “Yogi: The Life & Times of an American Original” is printed with the permission of Triumph Books / www.triumphbooks.com.

http://www.observer-online.com/articles/2008/06/26/sports/sports1.txt

Sunday, June 22, 2008

LUBBOCK AVALANCHE JOURNAL SAYS: YOGI "A SOLID HIT"


Kerns: Fresh take on Yogi Berra a solid hit
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Sunday, June 22, 2008Story last updated at 6/22/2008 - 7:42 am



It did not matter that I grew up in Colorado and Wyoming. I somehow started out a Yankees fan. I had plenty of individual baseball heroes: Dodgers and Cubs, Pirates and Giants. But by the time I turned 8 or 9, I thought the New York Yankees hung the moon.

Of course, back when I was discovering baseball, the Yankees were a mainstay on Saturday afternoon's televised game of the week. They made a habit of competing for, and winning, championships. Everyone had a favorite Yankee. But all of us also liked Yogi, who became a Yankee before I was born.

Now readers can learn so much more about the recognizable baseball icon - the man as well as the ballplayer - by reading Carlo DeVito's well-written, entertaining and often enlightening biography of Lawrence Peter Berra titled "Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original" (Triumph Books).

Books by and about Berra already are numerous and easy to find, and DeVito must have read them all, painstakingly documenting his material while separating the facts from exaggeration.
DeVito's literary look back works primarily because he paints Berra as a person rather than a clown, and as both a dangerous hitter and a ballplayer who took advantage of a later opportunity to develop into a Major League catcher.

It would not be a Berra biography without Yogi's many individual quotations; for example he would advise his friends to "always attend other people's funerals, so they will attend yours."
But books devoted solely to the funny things Yogi said already have been written.
Instead, DeVito captures a ballplayer who liked people and was smarter (see his financial investments) and more sensitive than many realized.
Berra told one reporter, "My wife, she don't like the stories which make me out a dope."
DeVito makes certain readers are aware of the insensitive remarks aimed his way.
The book does follow Berra's wartime experiences in the Navy but focuses more on how much baseball meant to him.

Readers will be dazzled by the number of offensive and defensive records broken by Berra during his career, not to mention the almost-magical way he seemed to wind up in yet another World Series.
Just as thrilling, though, are passages that find former Yankee catcher Bill Dickey hired to show Berra that there is more to baseball than hitting, and how to achieve it.

Berra, after all, was the man behind the plate for Allie Reynolds' two no-hitters.
And who could ever forget the photograph of Berra leaping into Don Larsen's arms after catching Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series?

DeVito follows Berra through the years, leading readers into and out of ball parks. The author takes us well past Berra's managing jobs with the Yankees and Mets - he would take both to a seven-game World Series - and may be the first to explore and explain Berra's 14-year boycott of Yankee Stadium after being fired by George Steinbrenner.
Mentioned, without being emphasized, are moments when other famous Yankees reveal a lack of class in the way they treat, or speak of, a teammate named Berra.
Fans may be shocked, but there are no sacred cows in this infield. And these bits of history won't be forgotten.
One also learns more about Berra from his reactions to the deaths of too many friends.
DeVito provides the research, a ballplayer's life story, as proof - then makes his point that Joe DiMaggio never passed any legendary Yankee crown on to Mickey Mantle.
DeVito writes: "Berra was an incontrovertible link in the chain of great Yankees.
"The Yankees lineage went from Babe Ruth to Lou Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio to Berra to Mantle to Thurman Munson and Graig Nettles and Reggie Jackson to Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter."
No comparison to modern-day players (or salaries) has to be made when we learn that, in 1962, at age 37, Berra was the only Yankees catcher in a 22-inning, seven-hour game.

Happily, DeVito also recounts Berra's fascinating reunion with Larsen at Yankee Stadium in 1999. The two friends celebrated the aforementioned perfect game with a ceremonial first pitch on the first "Yogi Berra Day" - then sat back and watched Yankee pitcher David Cone toss a perfect game against the Expos.
It was a perfect time for Berra to point out, "It's like deja vu all over again."

Even fans who read "Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original" may be startled by how little they really knew about the Yankee they remember cheering.
WILLIAM KERNS' entertainment reviews and commentary can be heard at 8:15 a.m. Monday through Friday on KLLL Radio (96.3 FM).

Thursday, June 12, 2008

National Sports Review Lauds YOGI

NSR REVIEWS: Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original
By: David Lister
Excerpts taken from: http://nationalsportsreview.com/2008/06/08/
nsr-reviews-yogi-the-life-and-times-of-an-american-original/
June 8, 2008
National Sports Review


Growing up I was a pretty big fan of Major League. It was goofy and about baseball, which seems to be a winning formula with me...

... one of the highlights of Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original is the dialogue (and sometimes alleged dialogue) between the Hall-of-Fame catcher and fellow major leaguers of the golden era of baseball. Yes, some of the Berra stories and quotes were made up by others and by many accounts Berra could be a bit foul mouthed and surly at times, but it’s still entertaining.

One of author Carlo DeVito’s goals with this book is to separate what is fact and fiction when it comes to the legend of Yogi Berra. He does an admirable job in this, and it is clear by the end of the book that Berra isn’t exactly the silly guy you see in Afflack commercials.

Berra was born in St. Louis and the book begins by chronicling his childhood in the Midwest city, focusing quite a bit on his relationship with longtime friend and fellow ballplayer Joe Garagiola. A huge part of his early childhood was his refusal to go to high school, as well as his struggles with convincing his parents he could make a living playing baseball.
As the book goes on, DeVito discusses Berra being signed by the Yankees, his time in the Navy and his time in the minor leagues. By the time DeVito gets to Berra’s time with the big club, the book is as much about the New York media creating an image for Berra as it is about his accomplishments.
But as interesting as Berra’s playing career was, it has nothing on his coaching career. The former catcher spent more than 20 years coaching and managing, mostly for the Yankees and Mets. During this part of the book, Berra does not come off as an innocent quote-machine at all, but rather an underappreciated baseball man fighting for his baseball livelihood. It’s in here that DeVito excels at offering a different side of Yogi Berra.

...But all in all Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original is everything you could want out of a biography. It’s thorough, full of pictures of Berra at different stages of his life and just like the man – or at least the character created by the media – it’s very entertaining.

David Lister is the web editor for the National Sports Review. You can reach him at chicagosportsreview@gmail.com