Yogi Berra, an American Success Story (by George Will)

On this episode of Our American Stories, "I never said most of the things I said." ... Well, even if that's so, Yogi Berra's quotes are just the entrée to the man's contribution to American sports and culture. George Will is here to bring us the main course!

Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people who would surprise. Winning columnist George Will has written
extensively about baseball and has said this about America's attraction
to it. Quote. Sports serves society by providing vivid examples

(00:30):
of excellence. One of those examples is New York Yankee
catcher and cultural icon Yogi bearra. Here's George Will high drive,
that's cuddled and Yogi Da.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Don't run high over the train.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
And end up at that avenue. Lein over it until
it's over. The ninety per cent of his name is
half a metal.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
When you come to the fork in the world, take it.
It's days you have rolled all over again, and.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
The Yankee is champions and look at the take you back.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Writing Popkadella, the eighteen year old US Navy and list ee,
thinking it sounded less boring than the dull training he
was doing in nineteen forty four, volunteered for service on

(01:18):
what he thought an officer had called rocket ships. Actually
they were small, slow, vulnerable boats used as launching pads
for rockets to give close in support for troops assaulting beaches.
The service on those boats certainly was not boring. At
dawn on June sixth, nineteen forty four, that sailor was

(01:40):
a few hundred yards off Omaha Beach. Lawrence Peter Barratt,
who died at ninety, had a knack for being where
the action was because he stood. When he stood. As
a catcher, he spent a lot of time crouching at
baseball's most physically and mentally demanding position five foot seven inches.

(02:02):
He confirmed the axiom that the beauty of baseball is
that a player does not need to be seven feet
tall or seven feet wide.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Barah's ways, and that one's been to leave the ballpark.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, what do you know, Larry Bearagum Yogi his very
first time at the play in the major leagues against
the A's, and what does he do? He hits the
home run. The shortstop during Yogi's first Yankee years was
an even smaller Italian American one hundred and fifty pound
Phil Risuto, listed at a generous five feet six Yogi had,

(02:36):
as sportswriter Alan Barras says in his book Yogi Barra
Eternal Yankee, the winningness career in the history of American sports.
He played on Yankee teams that went to the World
Series fourteen times in seventeen years. He won ten World
Series rings. No other player is more than nine. He
won three MVP Awards. Only Barry Bonds has more, with seven,

(02:59):
but four of them probably painted by performance enhancing drugs.
In seven consecutive seasons nineteen fifty through nineteen fifty six,
Yogi finished in the top four in MVP voting. Only
Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics eleven NBA championships, fivep Awards,

(03:21):
and Henri Richard of the Montreal Hockey Team eleven NHL
Championships have records of winning that exceed Yogis. He grew
up in what he and others called the Dago Hill
section of Saint Louis. When the Italian Americans who lived
there did not take offense at the name, they had
bigger problems. Biographer Alan Barrow notes that in an eighteen

(03:46):
ninety five advertisement seeking labor to build a New York reservoir,
the ad said whites would be paid a dollar thirty
to a dollar fifty a day, colored workers a dollar
twenty five to a dollar forty, and the Italians a
dollar fifteen to a dollar twenty five. The term wop
may have begun as an acronym for the phrase without papers,

(04:10):
as many Italians were when they arrived at Alas Island.
American sports and ethnicity have been interestingly entangled. The name
Fighting Irish was originally a disparagement by opponents of Notre Dame,
which for many years had problems filling its football schedule
because of anti Catholic bigotry, but sports also have been

(04:32):
stolvents of a sense of a partness felt by ethnic groups.
In nineteen twenty three, the Sporting News, which for many
decades was described as the Bible of baseball, except by
baseball fans, who described the Bible as the sporting News
of religion, called the national pastime the essence of the nation. Quote.

(04:53):
In a democratic, Catholic, real American game like baseball, there
has been no distinction raised, exce up tacit understanding that
a player of Ethiopian descent is ineligible the Mick, the Sheeni,
the Wop, the Dutch and the Chink, the Cuban, the Indian,
the Jap or the so called land glowed Saxon. His

(05:14):
nationality is never a matter of moment if he can
pitch hitterfield ah diversity. In nineteen oh eight, The Sporting
News said this about a Giant's rookie Charlie buck Herzog quote,
the long nosed routers are crazy. Whenever young Herzog does
anything noteworthy, cries of Herzog, Hertzog, good boy, Hertzog go

(05:37):
up regularly, and there would be no let up even
if a million ham sandwiches suddenly fell among these believers
in percentages and bargains. David Morana sent his biography of
Pirates the Pirates Roberto Clemente, the first Puerto Rican superstar,
notes that as late as nineteen seventy one, Clementi's seventeenth season,

(06:00):
one sportswriter still quoted him in phonetic English quote, if
I have my good armed thee ball against their a
lethal quicker. In nineteen sixty two, Alvin Dark, manager of
the San Francisco Giants, banned the speaking of Spanish in
the clubhouse. Today, with three of the most common surnames
in baseball being Martinez, Rodriguez, and Gonzales, some managers speak Spanish.

(06:26):
Yogi's great contemporary, the Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella, another three
time MVP, was the son of an African American mother
and Italian American father. With two Italian Americans on the
Supreme Court, it is difficult to imagine how delighted Italian
Americans were with their first national celebrity, the elegant center

(06:47):
fielder on baseball's most glamorous team, Joe Demaggio, the son
of a San Francisco fisherman. Demaggio was Big Dago to
his teammates. Yogi was Little Dago and became the nation's
most beloved sports figure. As Yogi said when Catholic Dublin
elected a Jewish mayor, only in America.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
And a great job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
George Will for sharing the story of Yogi Bearra indeed
only in America, Yogi Berra's story here on our American Stories.
This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories. Every

(07:32):
day we set out to tell the stories of Americans
past and present, from small towns to big cities, and
from all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But we
truly can't do this show without you. Our shows are
free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, go to our American
Stories dot com and make a donation to keep the

(07:53):
stories coming. That's our American Stories dot com.