The title “Greatest Living Yankee” is one not to be taken lightly. After all, the New York Yankees are baseball’s most successful franchise. One only needs to look at the plaques hanging in Cooperstown to get an idea of the line of heroes that have put on the pinstripes.
In
1969 a poll of national sportswriters named Joe DiMaggio baseball’s
“Greatest Living Player”. Whenever the “Yankee Clipper” appeared at
Old-Timer’s Day festivities in the Bronx, he insisted on being
introduced as “The Greatest Living Yankee”. Thus a tradition was born.
It
leads us to number six on our list of players that make up the Yankees’
Mount Olympus. He is the successor to DiMaggio (though he doesn’t
insist on the title as Joe did) as the “Greatest Living Yankee”.
He is, of course, our beloved Yogi Berra.
No
one has won more World Series rings than Berra. He owns ten of them as
a player, and three more as a coach (for the 1969 Mets and the ’77 and
’78 Yankees).
In
a career spanning 19 seasons, Berra hit .285 with 358 home runs and
drove in 1,430 RBI. In 14 World Series he hit 12 home runs and struck
out just 17 times in 259 postseason plate appearances. In fact, over
the course of his career he never had a season with more than 38
strikeouts. To say that Yogi knew how to put a ball in play would be
the biggest understatement in the history of baseball.
Yogi ranks eighth among all Yankees in hits, seventh in total bases and fifth in home runs.
As
valuable as he was at the plate, behind it, what he lacked in grace he
more than made up for in talent. He threw runners out at an incredible
49% clip.
Berra
was named an All-Star 15 times in an era where a player’s peers had a
say as to who participated. Three times he won the MVP and he was at
the heart of perhaps the greatest era the franchise has ever had.
As
a manager he led the Yankees to a pennant in 1964, and later the Mets
to a pennant in 1973. He remains one of the few managers in baseball
history to lead teams to championships in both leagues.
In spite of all that he accomplished on the field, it may be what Berra did off the field that makes him a true hero.
His
first two years as property of the New York Yankees were spent in
military service (he joined the Navy) where he participated in the D-Day
invasion and spent time in North Africa and Italy. It seems that Yogi
always found himself on the biggest stages – be they in baseball or in
life.
Baseball
hero, war hero, and successful businessman (Yoo-hoo chocolate drink
wouldn’t be what it is without its association with Yogi); Berra is a
true American icon.
Ironically,
what baseball fans most identify with Berra has nothing to do with what
he has done; rather it is what he has said.
There are entire internet sites
dedicated to “Yogi-isms”. Sayings like “Baseball is 90 percent
mental, the other half is physical” and “If you come to a fork in the
road, take it” have set Yogi apart from his peers in the media and
ensured that he will be remembered for generations to come.
In
1972 Berra’s number 8 was retired by the Yankees and the catcher was
elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame, and in 1988 his plaque was added to
Yankee Stadium’s monument park.
He is a Yankee legend whose life has encompassed some of the biggest moments on the biggest stages.
There
will never be another Yogi Berra and Yankee fans should cherish the
moments we have left with the 88-year-old, and remember: “You can
observe a lot by watching”.
It is with great honor that we add Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra to the Yankees Mount Olympus.
It is with great honor that we add Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra to the Yankees Mount Olympus.
--Steve Skinner, BYB Guest Writer
Twitter: @oswegos1
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