ST. LOUIS. Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, one of the most quoted individuals of all time, was the subject of a forum for scholars on the centenary of his birth today in the working class-Italian neighborhood where he grew up, disparagingly referred to as “Dago Hill.” “It ain’t something we take offense to,” says Dominic Scalzo, a 90-year-old who claims he knew Berra as a boy. “‘Cause if we did, we’d knock your freakin’ block off.”
In his opening remarks Alton Birdswell, a professor of American studies at the University of Missouri-Knob Foster, said “The great thing for those of you who came by Interstate 70 is you didn’t have to take any forks in the road,” drawing laughs from the assembled scholars, who immediately recognized the allusion to one of Berra’s more widely-known malapropisms.
“Yogi didn’t say everything he is blamed for,” Birdswell continued. “On the other hand, he said a lot of things he didn’t get credit for.”
Hank Aaron
Asked to give an example, Birdswell recounted an anecdote from the 1958 World Series. “Hank Aaron was up to bat for the Braves, Yogi went out to the mound and told Whitey Ford, ‘Don’t throw this guy anything but breaking stuff–remember how he teed off on us last year?’” Milwaukee had defeated the Yankees, four games to three, in the 1957 fall classic as Aaron homered three times.
Whitey Ford
“Yogi went back behind the plate, Whitey goes into his wind-up, and first pitch throws a fast ball that Aaron blasts into the left-field bleachers. So Yogi yells to Ford ‘Hey, you mook! Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it!’”
George Santayana: Traded to Cleveland for Vic Wertz and a philosopher to be named later.
When Susan van de Velde, a professor of history at Bucknell University, commented that most scholars attribute that adage to George Santayana, Scalzo defended the claim. “Santayana’s a bush leaguer,” he snapped. “Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain–those guys have maybe been quoted more than Yogi. But Santayana? Gimme a break!”
Birdswell continued with a story about Berra’s first full year with the Yankees, 1947. “He was with the Newark Bears the year before, so Phil Rizzuto and Joe DiMaggio took him under their wings when he got to New York. You know–three goombahs. They were at the Copacabana one night–everybody was there. Seabiscuit jumped up on stage and started singing ‘All of Me’ with Sammy Davis, Jr. It was wild!”
Seabiscuit: “All of me-why not take-all of me!”
“Yogi wasn’t used to the night life so around two in the morning, he says ‘It gets late early up here in New York, I think I’ll take a cab home.’ Rizzuto says, “That’s not a bad idea,’ and Yogi replies ‘Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.'”
Victor Hugo: “Oh man–do I have a hangover!”
Professor Jeffrey Weiner of Brandeis University objected that, although sometimes attributed to Goethe, this maxim had been definitively traced to Victor Hugo. Again, Yogi’s boyhood friend Scalzo defended him. “Victor Hugo?” he snapped at the young scholar. “Please–Hugo couldn’t carry Yogi’s jock strap to the ballpark!”
After lively debate on several other quotes, Birdswell said “We’ll take one more question, but make it short, cause as Yogi used to say, ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’.”
An English professor in attendance called up the text to Hamlet on his laptop computer and noted that this phrase appears in Act II, Scene 2 of that play by Shakespeare. “You better check your dates, pal,” Scalzo said with an uplifted eyebrow that conveyed the depths of his disdain. “Yogi lived to a ripe old age, and he always said a lot of sayings.”
A teaching assistant in the crowd who proclaimed himself a baseball “nut” rose to ask Birdswell what he thought was Berra’s greater accomplishment; the three MVP awards he won with the Yankees, which place him in a tie with ten others for second-place behind Barry Bonds, or his 358 career home runs, a record for catchers that stood for 18 years.
“Well, as Yogi used to say,” Birdswell began. “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”