Word: yogis
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Kidding. Ah, but Yogi was smarter than the average bear. While he was getting yuks, Yankee pitchers were getting the sign and the team was winning pennants-ten under Casey Stengel, three straight under laconic Ralph Houk. For fun and profit, Yogi built a bowling alley in Clifton, N.J., became a vice president of something called Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink, and prospered to the point that he could claim to be "half a millionaire." Stengel liked to call him "Mr. Berra, my assistant manager," and Houk promoted him to player-coach this year. No one could figure out if they...
Sportswriters called him "the ballplayer Ring Lardner missed," and when Yogi was beaned in Detroit, the papers reported: "Xray pictures of Berra's head showed nothing." Rival players hung by one hand from the dugout roof when he came to bat, scratching their armpits with the other. "Hey, Yog," they yelled. "You still sleeping in trees?" One opposing catcher used to watch Yogi step into the batting cage, then bellow: "Quick, men! Shut the gate! You got him." TV even got into the act with a "Yogi Bear" cartoon series about an animal that walks like...
...showed up behind the plate without his catcher's mask. He once hit a pitcher on the chest with a throw to second base; another time he beaned the second-base umpire, and one day he caught a fly ball with his forehead. His face creased in concentration, Yogi was always the first Yankee to report for work. "I know I'm going to take the wrong subway, so I leave an hour early...
...read comic books in the dugout ("I like the ones about crooks best"), once turned down an invitation to dinner at a famous restaurant with the comment: "Nobody goes there any more. It's too crowded." On a trip to Italy in 1961, Yogi took in Tosca at La Scala. "It was pretty good," he said. "Even the music was nice." And who can ever forget Lawrence Berra Night in his home town of St. Louis? Yogi stepped up to the microphone and announced: "I want to thank all the baseball fans and everyone else who made this night...
...Yankee front office never kids. Owners Dan Topping and Del Webb started thinking about Berra a year ago, right after the 1962 World Series. General Manager Roy Hamey wanted to retire, Ralph Houk looked like the right man for that job, and with Yogi taking over on the field the Yankees could at least expect a rise in attendance. Even if they lost, Yogi was sure to tickle the turnstiles. For once, Berra was speechless. He kept mum about it all year long, just standing there in the first-base coach's box "observing...