Yogi Berra: An American Success Story (by George Will)

On this episode of Our American Stories, George Will's volume on baseball is one of the most acclaimed sports books ever written. He's here to tell the story of Yankee star, Yogi Berra.

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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.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Sports serves society by providing vivid examples of excellence. One
of those examples is New York Yankee catcher and cultural
icon Yogi bearra Here's George Will.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
High drive, that's cuddled and Yogida. Don't run high over
the train and end up at that avenue.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
It ain't over it until it's over.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Nine per cent of his name is half a mether.

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

Speaker 3 (00:55):
And the Yankee you champions, and look at Barrow, take
you back.

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

(01:18):
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 Barrett,
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 3 (02:09):
Barah's ways, and that one's been a leagal ballpark. Well,
what do you know, Larry Beara the Yogi his very
first time at the play in the major leagues against
the A's, and what does he do?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
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, as sportswriter Alan Barras says in
his book Yogi Barra Eternal Yankee, the winningness career in

(02:43):
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, but four of them probably
painted by performance enhancing drugs. In seven consecutive seasons nineteen

(03:09):
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, and Henri Richard of
the Montreal Hockey Team eleven NHL Championships have records of
winning that exceed Yogis. He grew up in what he

(03:33):
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
Barro notes that in an eighteen ninety five advertisement seeking
labor to build a New York reservoir, the ad said
whites would be paid a dollar thirty to a dollar

(03:54):
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, as many
Italians were when they arrived at Ellis Island. American sports

(04:15):
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 stolvents
of a sense of a partness felt by ethnic groups.

(04:38):
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.
In a democratic, Catholic, real American game like baseball, there
has been no distinction raised exce zup tacit understanding that

(05:01):
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
nationality is never a matter of moment if he can
pitch hitterfield ah diversity. In nineteen oh eight, The Sporting

(05:23):
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
up regularly, and there would be no let up even
if a million ham sandwiches suddenly fell among these believers

(05:44):
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 one sportswriter still quoted him in phonetic English quote,
if I have my good armed fee ball, getst there

(06:07):
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. Yogi's great contemporary, the Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella,

(06:30):
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 fielder on baseball's most glamorous team, Joe Demaggio,

(06:51):
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
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(07:53):
stories coming. That's our American Stories dot com.