I was at the Yogi Berra Museum this past Thursday morning for the unveiling of the U.S. Postal Service’s new Yogi stamp. (You can read the full story HERE.) Longtime MLB sportscaster Bob Costas was the Master of Ceremonies and as I mentioned in the original article, did a great job of detailing Yogi’s “unique” way of expressing himself”. Most of the Yogi-isms I had heard previously but there were one or two that were new to me – and most of the crowd in attendance apparently, as some anecdotes got big laughs.
Because there were so many stories, part of the original article was left on the cutting room floor. The following anecdote that Costas related about Berra didn’t make the cut, but it was just too good to not share with everybody. I had never heard this one before, and just on the off chance you haven’t either, I wanted to share it with you today.
Apparently, when Yogi was the Mets’ manager in the 70s, during a spring training game in Florida, three streakers ran across the field, mid-game. Seems weird now, but that was a cool thing to do back then apparently (shrugs…) Later that night, Yogi meets up with his old pals Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford for dinner. Mantle and Ford had not been at the game, but had heard there were some shenanigans, so they asked Berra what happened.
“Craziest thing,” Berra started. “Three streakers jump over the wall by the first base line, run on to the field, past the first base line, toward the mound – Seaver is in mid-stretch and here come these three streakers charging at him! They run past the mound, across the third base line into foul territory, hop the fence into the parking lot and run away.”
Laughing, Mantle said “Jeez…were they men or women?”
“I couldn’t tell, they had bags on their heads,” Berra responded, as only Yogi could.
Damn, we miss you Yogi.
Somewhat tangentially, Jon Pessah’s biography on Yogi is one of the best baseball biographies I’ve read – the link is on the right side of this page if you want to take a peak and see a sample of it.
Did I miss anything? Let me know.
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