Yogi Berra: If You Can’t Imitate Him, Don’t Copy Him

Whether you are a fan of Major League Baseball or not you’ve most likely heard of Yogi Berra. At the very least you know one of his famous phrases such as, “It ain’t over til it’s over”, “When you come to the fork in the road take it” and “Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical”. During his managing tenure with the New York Yankees, he frequently came to blows with owner George Steinbrenner. Yogi was always a consummate professional and when his close friend and former player, Joe Garagiola, commented on the poor relationship the two men had, Berra responded by saying, “…we just agree different”. While the Yogisms are the stuff of legend, they seem to have overshadowed his accomplishments on the field, leading people to forget how great of a player he truly was for the Yankees and the game of baseball.

The Yankees have had their share of great catchers in their long history such as Bill Dickey, Elston Howard, Thurman Munson, and Jorge Posada. However, none of these players racked up the records and accolades of Yogi. Over his seventeen-year career he hit more than twenty home runs in eleven of them, racking up three MVP awards, the same amount as his battery mate Mickey Mantle. Most people hold Mantle in higher regard than Yogi but for three years in a row Berra lead the team in RBIs. He had incredible coverage of the plate, spraying hits to all fields long before Ichiro Suzuki and Vladimir Guerrero Sr ever set foot on a diamond. High, low, inside, and outside, it did not matter, the man just hit. 

The Yankee backstop only had two seasons in his career in which he struck out more than he walked. This stat is especially impressive in the modern age of baseball with strikeouts being at an all-time high. Yogi has the fourth most career home runs by a catcher and ranks 88^th on the all-time list. He helped lead the Yankees to ten World Championships between 1947-1962. He not only led them to the Fall Classic, but he also performed exceptionally well, hitting twelve home runs with 39 RBIs and an OPS of .811 (OBP .359 and .452 SLG) in 75 career World Series games. He is the only player to win ten World Series Championships as a player, all with the Yankees. Berra was baseball’s equivalent of Bill Russell, who won eleven NBA Championships with the Boston Celtics. 

The Yankee teams Berra played on in his Hall of Fame career were phenomenal. It could be argued that it was the best stretch of baseball in team history. The rosters were stacked with future Hall of Famers like Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Johnny Mize and his close friend, Phil Rizzuto. He provided potent offense and called almost 1700 games behind the plate. Many people view a pitcher’s success but fail to give the catcher his due. The catcher must work as hard as the pitcher to know how to approach every single hitter in the opposing team’s lineup, utilizing the arsenal of every pitcher on the staff. Yogi was behind the plate for all twenty-seven outs of Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. This remains the only perfect game in World Series history. While Larsen had to execute every pitch effectively, Yogi called an equally perfect game and allowed the Yankees to take a 3-2 lead in the series.

Yogi’s teammate Tom Sturdivant said it best, “I can’t say enough for Yogi Berra. It gives a young pitcher a lot of confidence to have a fellow like Berra calling the pitches. No one could set up the hitters better.” He had tremendous baseball knowledge and guided the pitching staff and his team to victory time and again. Berra would use his catching talents later in his life to mentor future members of the Yankees. After reconciling with George Steinbrenner, he worked with future Yankee catching great Jorge Posada, paying forward the mentorship he received from Bill Dickey early in his tenure as the Yankee backstop. His quotes are legendary, but he should be remembered equally as the greatest catcher in Yankee history. Jorge Posada put it simply “…if you love baseball, then you love Yogi Berra.”