Yogi Berra, the long time Yankee icon and oft-quoted catcher and left fielder, has passed. His teams won 10 World Series during his career, which is an astoundingly high amount of championships. It's more than Babe Ruth, more than Lou Gehrig, more than Joe DiMaggio, more than Mickey Mantle, and more than Derek Jeter, the most recent Yankee legend. No one in baseball won more championships, and in American sports, only Bill Russel of the Boston Celtics won more as a player.
Joe DiMaggio died a few years back, and I'm not even sure what I was doing. The last Yankee legend who died before that, Mickey Mantle, was in 1995, and that I do remember pretty well. I was even thinking about it this past week as I thought about Yogi.
It was 1995 and I remember being on the phone with a girl I liked, and being an awkward kind of guy as a teenager, that phone call was an awkward kind of thing. I remember desperately wanting to talk about something real, something meaningful in which we both had interest, but, like the sentence said, I was awkward.
As the conversation lagged, I mentioned Mickey Mantle had died. "Aww," she said in manner that told me she wasn't really baseball savvy. "He played...baseball?"
I chuckled slightly but non-derisively, "Yeah, on the Yankees back in the day. He was...pretty good."
She, being a cool chick, tried to find some common ground. "Well, Jerry Garcia died."
"Aww," I mirrored. "He, uh...he played guitar?"
"Yeah," she chuckled in the same manner that I had, "for the Grateful Dead. He was pretty good, too."
Yogi Berra played catcher for over half his career, but he also played in the outfield for a sizable chunk. Bill James ranked him as the best catcher ever, as of 2000, just ahead of Johnny Bench. Much of his value, according to James, came from being a left fielder, but, as he says, the players have to go somewhere.
Who could possibly be better? Piazza? Joe Mauer? Pudge Rodriguez? (Didn't Pudge get busted for 'roids?) If it's not Yogi or Bench, who could it be?
Anyway, the game lost a classic ambassador, and I got to reminisce about being an awkward teenager.
You'll be missed, Yogi...
well.... Mike Scioscia isn't all that terrible... and he is a tad bit better but not much over Ferguson.... but since I ONLY followed Dodger catchers... PIazza might be the better of the 3.....Yogi wins for many things...being a character off the field as well as a darn good player on the field....
ReplyDeleteat least in my opinion