Yogi Berra: An American Success Story (by George Will)

Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people who would surprise. Winning columnist George Will has written
extensively about baseball and has said this about America's attraction
to it.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Sports serves society by providing vivid examples of excellence. One
of those examples is New York Yankee catcher and cultural
icon Yogi Bearra. Here's George Will high drive, that's cuddled
and Yogi Da.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
They'll run high over the train and end up at
that avenue. It ain't over it until it's over ninety centers.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Name is half metal. When you come to the fark
in the world, take it it's days you have roll
all over again and the Yank is you champions, and
look at Bara take you back righting.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Popkadella, the eighteen year old US Navy and list ee,
thinking it sounded less boring than the dull training he
was doing in nineteen forty four, volunteered for service on

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what he thought an officer had called rocket ships. Actually
they were small, slow, vulnerable boats used as launching pads
for rockets to give close in support for troops assaulting beaches.
The service on those boats certainly was not boring. At
dawn on June sixth, nineteen forty four, that sailor was

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a few hundred yards off Omaha Beach. Lawrence Peter Barrow,
who died at ninety, had a knack for being where
the action was because he stood. When he stood. As
a catcher, he spent a lot of time crouching at
baseball's most physically and mentally demanding position five foot seven inches.

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He confirmed the axiom that the beauty of baseball is
that a player does not need to be seven feet
tall or seven feet wide. Beah's ways, and that one's
been a league ballpark. Well, what do you know, Larry
Beara the ballum Yogi his very first time at the
plate in the Major Leagues against the A's, and what
does he do? He hits a home run. The shortstop

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during Yogi's first Yankee years was an even smaller Italian
American one hundred and fifty pound Phil Risuto, listed at
a generous five feet six Yogi had as sportswriter Alan
Barraw says in his book Yogi Barra Eternal Yankee, The
winningness career in the history of American sports. He played

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on Yankee teams that went to the World Series fourteen
times in seventeen years. He won ten World Series rings.
No other player is more than nine. He won three
MVP Awards. Only Barry Bonds has more, with seven, but
four of them probably painted by performance enhancing drugs. In

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seven consecutive seasons nineteen fifty through nineteen fifty six, Yogi
finished in the top four in MVP voting. Only Bill
Russell of the Boston Celtics eleven NBA championships, fivep Awards,
and Henri Richard of the Montreal Hockey Team eleven NHL
Championships have records of winning that exceed Yogi's. He grew

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up in what he and others called the Dago Hill
section of Saint Louis. When the Italian Americans who lived
there did not take offense at the name, they had
bigger problems. Biographer Alan Barrow notes that in an eighteen
ninety five advertisement seeking labor to build a New York reservoir,
the ad said whites would be paid a dollar thirty

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to a dollar fifty a day, colored workers a dollar
twenty five to a dollar forty, and the Italians a
dollar fifteen to a dollar twenty five. The term wop
may have begun as an acronym for the phrase without papers,
as many Italians were when they arrived at Alas Island.
American sports and ethnicity have been interestingly entangled. The name

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Fighting Irish was originally a disparagement by opponents of Notre Dame,
which for many years had problems filling its football schedule
because of anti Catholic bigotry, but sports also have been
stolvents of a sense of apartness felt by ethnic groups.
In nineteen twenty three, the Sporting News, which for many

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decades was described as the Bible of baseball, except by
baseball fans, who described the Bible as the sporting News
of religion, called the national pastime the essence of the
nation quote. In a democratic, Catholic, real American game like baseball,
there has been no distinction raised except up pacid understanding

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that a player of Ethiopian descent is ineligible the Mick,
the Sheeni, the Wop, the Dutch and the Chink, the Cuban,
the Indian, the Jap or the so called land glow Saxon.
His nationality is never a matter of moment if he
can pitch hitterfield ah diversity. In nineteen oh eight, The

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Sporting News said this about a Giant's rookie Charlie buck
Herzog quote, the long nosed routers are crazy. Whenever young
Herzog does anything noteworthy, cries of Herzog, Hertzog, good boy,
Hertzog go up regularly, and there would be no let
up even if a million ham sandwiches suddenly fell Among

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these believers in percentages and bargains. David Morana sent his
biography of Pirates the Pirates Roberto Clemente, the first Puerto
Rican superstar, notes that as late as nineteen seventy one,
Clementi's seventeenth season one sportswriter still quoted him in phonetic
English quote, if I have my good armed fee ball

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gainst their a lethal quicker. In nineteen sixty two, Alvin Dark,
manager of the San Francisco Giants, banned the speaking of
Spanish in the clubhouse. Today, with three of the most
common surnames in baseball being Martinez, Rodriguez, and Gonzales, some
managers speak Spanish. Yogi's great contemporary, the Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella.

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Another three time MVP was the son of an African
American mother and Italian American father. With two Italian Americans
on the Supreme Court, it is difficult to imagine how
delighted Italian Americans were with their first national celebrity, the
elegant center fielder on Baseball's most glamorous team, Joe Demaggio,

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the son of a San Francisco fisherman. Demaggio was Big
Dago to his teammates. Yogi was Little Dago and became
aim the nation's most beloved sports figure. As Yogi said
when Catholic Dublin elected a Jewish mayor, only in America.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
And a great job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
George Will for sharing the story of Yogi Bearra indeed
only in America, Yogi Berra's story here on our American Stories.
This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories. Every

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day we set out to tell the stories of Americans
past and present, from small towns to big cities, and
from all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But we
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