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Maury
Allen |
 Yogi Berra Happy |
Why Nicknames Count |
 Yogi Berra Serious |
Would the Yogiman have become
a baseball legend as Larry Berra?
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
HE WAS A 16-year-old American
Legion baseball player in a St. Louis neighborhood known as Dago
Hill back in 1941, a few months before the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor would change the world.
The scruffy kid known as Lawdie to his pals for his first name
of Larry as in Lawrence Peter Berra sat cross legged and with
arms linked as he awaited his turn at bat on the rocky field.
"One of my pals was Bobby Hoffman (later to make it for
seven years with the New York Giants as a journeyman infielder)
and he had seen this movie about India. There was a guy in it
who sat on the ground and meditated," Berra said. "Bobby
said I looked like him, an Indian yogi. All the guys started
calling me Yogi."
Berra was standing in the conference room of his own Yogi Berra
Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls, New Jersey recently
talking about the fourth book he has authored, "When You
Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It" with Dave Kaplan (Hyperion),
a collection of the sayings and stories of the Hall of Famer.
It describes the inspiration and wisdom of one of baseball's
greatest heroes.
He admitted he has written (with some help) more books than he
ever read.
"I was a school dropout so I didn't read books. I did read
The Sporting News all the time, though. I studied every box score,
especially of the Cardinals," Berra said.
Ducky Wucky Medwick was his favorite Cardinals player. It wasn't
because of his hard-headed style or slugging skills.
"It was because I used to deliver papers to him. The paper
cost two cents and he always gave me a nickel. He became my favorite
Cardinal," Berra said.
I go back 40 years with Berra to his days as a fading Yankee
star in the late 1950s into the early 1960s, his first managerial
term with the Yankees, his shocking firing in 1964 after losing
the World Series to the Cardinals, his coaching and managing
days with the Mets, his return to the Yankees as a coach under
Billy Martin and his quick time march as field boss under team
Boss George Steinbrenner.
Through all those years and all his authored books, one thought
always raged through my mind: Would he have become one of America's
best known and most beloved athletes if he stuck with that name
of Larry Berra?
Even his beautiful wife of 52 years, Carmen Berra, calls him
Yogi as do his three sons (Dale Berra played for Yogi as a Yankee),
nine grand children, legion of friends and admirers and the world
at large.
Berra describes in his book when he officially became Yogi to
himself as well as others.
"Umpire Bill McGowan arranged for me to autograph a couple
of baseballs," Berra writes of a 1947 event allowing the
underpaid umps of the day to hustle a few bucks at dinners with
signed baseballs. Berra signed the balls as Larry Berra and McGowan
asked, "Who the hell put Larry Berra on here?"
Berra protested that his name was Larry Berra and McGowan said,
"The hell it is. Sign them Yogi. That's your name, ain't
it?"
The thought persists that in the current collectible market a
baseball signed "Larry Berra" might have the value
of an antique.
Nicknames matter in sports. They excite the memory and warm the
fans. A guy named George Ruth might have hit 714 homers but hardly
would have become the icon of his age without the tag of Babe.
Would I have fallen in love with a Dodgers shortstop named Harold
Reese as a kid growing up in Brooklyn? I think not. He was a
Pee Wee and so were we all in our sandlot battles. Would Jay
Hanna Dean have gotten all that attention and later radio and
television gigs without the tag of Dizzy?
Would Kevin Costner have brought a guy named Archibald Wright
Graham into the world of movie romance in "Field of Dreams"
without his official tag of Moonlight Graham for his one 1905
appearance with the New York Giants? Not a chance.
A Kansas City dental school dropout named Charles Dillon Stengel
became Casey Stengel for his home town. He never would have had
as much fun managing the Yankees if his catcher was Larry Berra.
What's in a nickname? Plenty. Especially if you can play or manage.
© 2001 by Maury Allen.
You can comment on this column or contact Maury Allen with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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