And now he would be working for the mercurial Steinbrenner, who is subject to fits of manager switching, having hired 12 in 11 years. He said he'd have to think about it "because Carmen might have other ideas." Berra's wife of 35 years knew Yogi has been happy as a Yankee coach the past eight seasons, and also knew the insecurity of managing. The way it happened, he said, they were both attending a Boy Scouts banquet in East Orange, N.J., "when Steinbrenner all of a sudden asked me if I wanted to manage the Yankees. They don't mean bad and they're making me famous."Īt the Yankees' camp that opened this week, Berra said he didn't embrace Steinbrenner's offer of the New York job right way. And he said that one, too, about the time he wanted to order those two jackets, "one navy blue and one navy brown." But he also said: "They've put a lot of other funnies in my mouth. They're having fun." Yes, he said that one about Bobby Brown and how did his book come out. Bright men, corporate types, like to repeat what Yogi said and see the merit in it and have adopted it."Ībout the Berra-isms attributed to him, Yogi said here recently: "Some of those things I said and some things I didn't, but I don't care. Sure, he said, 'It's not over 'til it's over,' and people keep making fun of that, but look what's happening now. And I put my medical book away the same moment Yogi put away his comic book one night, and he asked me, 'How did your's come out?' "īrown said the story was true but he also said, from his office in New York: "Yogi is a wonderful straight thinker and, in his own way, he can be pretty profound. "I know they like to talk about Yogi and me when we were roommates, and I was studying nights on my medical degree. One who eagerly attests that Berra is an underrated intelligence is his former roommate at Newark and later a Yankee third baseman and now president of the American League, Dr. No one could quarrel with Yogi's arithmetic or his logic. Did he have a clubhouse meeting, and what did he say to his now slightly desperate Mets? His economy of words was demonstrated back in 1973 when he had the Mets in the World Series and was trailing Oakland in games, 2 to 1, and reporters were questioning him on the field before the fourth game. What Yogi Berra is, is a straight-thinking baseball man with no frills. Steinbrenner finally learned-as had the Twins, Tigers, and Rangers, who also had experiences with Martin-that before hiring the man one should get a second opinion. So here he is again, 20 years later, manager of the Yankees once more, George Steinbrenner's choice to replace Billy Martin, who became unwelcome to Steinbrenner once again after Yankee players last season threatened an open revolt against Billy and his I-Am-The-Word approach to managing. And with his reputation as the sworn enemy of the grammatical sentence-"Bill Dickey learned me all of his experience"-Yogi completed his caricature of the role of a baseball eminence.īerra routed the sceptics by winning the pennant with the 1964 Yankees his first time out, just as he had proved years before that, hidden in that short, lumpy physique, were amazing baseball talents-a rifle for a throwing arm, speed on the bases and a bat that delivered more home runs than any other catcher in American League history. His squatty, gnome-like frame and grinning countenance hardly looked like the managerial prototype, the deep-thinking personality who could hold sway over a baseball team. What they were saying mostly was that Yogi didn't look like a manager. They respected him for the great player he was (three times the American League's most valuable). The Yankees liked to make sport of their pal, Yogi, who never seemed displeased by it. However, it was not entirely a matter of not believing that Berra was managerial timber. But at the time the Yankee players were treating it as rollicking good fun. Weeks later, it would be confirmed, a clean scoop for the Newark News. And Mickey Mantle chimed in with: "Yogi, a manager? What will they think of next." "They gotta be kidding," said Whitey Ford, Berra's closest friend on the Yankees. He was reading a Detroit newspaper that quoted Newark News sports columnist Hy Goldberg as saying he had it from reliable sources that New York Yankees owners Dan Topping and Del Webb already had made up their minds to give Ralph Houk's job to Yogi Berra. Says here that Yogi is going to be the next Yankee manager." It was on a Yankee team bus late in the 1963 season that a player sitting in the back suddenly yelled, "Hey, guys, what do you know about this.
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