The first two weeks of Yogi Berra’s life as a full-fledged Yankee in New York are a blur. He quickly finds himself a room at the Hotel Edison on West 47th Street, where many of the younger Yankees stay. It’s just $4.50 a night. The added bonus: it’s only blocks from more than a dozen movie houses. That’s about all the entertainment Yogi can afford since he’s sending a good chunk of his $5,000 salary—the major league minimum—back home to Mom.
Berra settles in just in time for the final three exhibition games against the Dodgers—two at Yankee Stadium and one at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. It’s going to take a while getting used to walking into the history-drenched clubhouse in the Bronx, sitting down just a few lockers away from Joe DiMaggio, pulling on a pinstriped jersey with the number 35 on its back. It’s also going to take some time to learn New York’s subway system, which is why the Yankee PR staff hands out maps to all newcomers in need of directions to Brooklyn for the final exhibition game.
The ribbing from his teammates hasn’t stopped when the team arrives in New York, but the writers wonder why the veterans are teasing Yogi about problems getting to Ebbets Field. After all, they saw Berra arrive at the Dodgers’ home field in plenty of time. “Oh, I got here on time, all right,” he tells them. “I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left an hour early.”
Everyone has a good laugh when they hear his explanation, and Yogi knows the story is sure to make the rounds. He’s discovered playing for the Yankees means just about every comical thing he says and does—and many things that are just made up about him—will appear in newspapers all around the country. But so will everything he does right, including the big home run he hits today over the screen in right field and clear out of Ebbets Field.
Everything about the Yankees seems to make headlines, even their decision to start the rookie Berra in right field. The Sporting News, the bible of baseball for decades, celebrates Bucky Harris’ decision by running a political-style cartoon of Yogi on the cover of its April 9 edition.
“The newest tenant of Ruthville will be Yogi Berra,” the caption reads.
Berra can hardly believe it. The Sporting News—published in his hometown of St. Louis—just put his name in the same sentence as Babe Ruth. Not a bad way to start your rookie year.
Berra’s first major league season is set to open in Washington on April 14, with President Truman throwing out the first pitch. Rain washes away the game, but Joe DiMaggio is the big news, rejoining the team and announcing he’ll be back in the lineup within 10 days. Yogi is in right field and batting fifth for the home opener a day later, when former President Herbert Hoover tosses out the first pitch. Yogi’s sacrifice fly drives in the team’s only run in a 6–1 loss.
The team is back in Washington on April 18, and this time Senator pitcher Ray Scarborough is waiting for Berra. In the middle of batting practice, Scarborough hangs from the top of his team’s dugout with one hand, scratches his armpit like a monkey with the other hand, and loudly asks Yogi how he likes sleeping in a tree. Berra laughs and knows instantly he’ll see that stunt repeated in every opponent’s ballpark, too. He replies the best way he knows how, rapping out four singles and knocking in a run in a 7–0 Yankee win.
But the major story again is DiMaggio, who says he’s ready to play. He pinch-hits against the Senators in Washington on April 19, and Harris pencils Joe into his familiar spots—batting cleanup and playing center field—in the first game of the next day’s doubleheader in Philadelphia. DiMaggio sits down with Yogi and tells the rookie how things work in his outfield: If Yogi calls for the ball, it’s all his. If not, stay out of the way and Joe will get it. Fly balls don’t fall in Joe DiMaggio’s outfield—that’s what he’s always told Yankee pitchers, who’ve never had any reason to doubt their graceful center fielder’s word.
DiMaggio’s directions stay with Yogi less than two innings. With two outs and a runner on first in the bottom of the 2nd, A’s shortstop Eddie Joost lifts a ball into right-center. It’s not clear who calls for the ball, but Joe makes the catch just moments before Berra runs him over, knocking a startled DiMaggio right on his ass. Harris and the entire Yankee team hold their breath until they see Joe get up and jog back to the dugout, the third out safely in his glove.
DiMaggio doesn’t say a word. Bobby Brown and George McQuinn open the 3rd with singles, and Joe walks into the batter’s box and takes his familiar legs-spread-wide stance. Two pitches later, DiMaggio swings and sends the ball soaring into the upper deck in left field for a three-run homer. Suddenly, all is right with the Yankees, who go on to win, 6–2. Yogi goes hitless but bounces back with a single and double in New York’s 3–2 win to sweep the doubleheader.
Berra is just outside the circle of reporters crowding around DiMaggio after the doubleheader, but close enough to hear Joe explain their outfield collision. “I called for the ball, all right,” Joe says, “but Yogi was too anxious to help me. He knows all about that bad heel of mine, and he figured he was doing something to save me. He thought I was telling him to make the play. And he did try to pull away at the last minute.”
Like everyone, Yogi’s heard DiMaggio can be one mean SOB, so he’s relieved to hear Joe covering for his mistake. And Berra’s even more relieved the next day to see his name on the lineup card on the clubhouse wall. Even a rookie knows crashing into Yankee legends is a good way to lose your job.
Yankee Stadium is something to see when every one of the seats in the lower bowl of the horseshoe is filled, every bench in the bleachers is full, and every seat right back to the last row of the third deck is taken. On April 27, 1947, Berra sees each of the 58,339 fans who’ve filled the Stadium rise when team officials help Babe Ruth walk up the three steps of the home-team dugout and onto the field. After 14 years of ignoring Ruth, now in the final stages of throat cancer, baseball has declared today National Babe Ruth Day. The audio for the ceremony is being broadcast to every major league park’s public address system and every minor league park with the proper equipment. It’s even going out to radio stations in Japan and Europe.
Yogi was in the Yankee clubhouse just an hour earlier, watching DiMaggio, Harris, and coach Frank Crosetti hover around the Babe, each of them getting his autograph. Crosetti played three seasons with Ruth, and was in the Yankee dugout when the Babe called his famous home run against the Cubs in New York’s four-game sweep of the 1932 World Series.
Berra listens to Francis Cardinal Spellman finish his invocation and watches the Babe walk up to the bank of microphones and address the fans. Ruth’s wearing his trademark camel-hair polo coat, and when he takes off the matching camel-hair hat Yogi can see just how gaunt and ghostly the great man looks. He’s 52, but three months after his most recent throat surgery he looks more like 80. Still, as the huge crowd’s roar welcomes him, Yogi notices Ruth square his shoulders and stand a bit straighter, strengthened by the overwhelming reception.
“Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen,” the raspy-voiced Ruth says. “You know how bad my voice sounds… well, it feels just as bad.”
Yogi feels himself fighting back tears, and sees many of his teammates struggling to do the same. The man they’re watching grew up in a Baltimore orphanage, then became the larger-than-life performer who rescued the game when a gambling scandal threatened to shut it down. It’s nearly impossible not to love the Babe, faults and all.
“The only real game in the world, I think, is baseball,” says Ruth, and now Berra is straining to hear as the Babe’s hoarse voice grows fainter. “You gotta let it grow up with you, and if you’re successful and you try hard enough, you’re bound to come out on top.
“There’s been a lot of nice things said about me. I am glad I had the opportunity to thank everybody. Thank you.”
Ruth waves to the crowd, then staggers a bit when he turns to walk away. Berra and a few of the younger Yankees move to help. “Leave him alone: he knows where the dugout is,” comes a voice, low but firm. Yogi doesn’t see who spoke, but no one dares to move. The Babe reaches the place near the dugout where Yogi and the Yankees are standing alongside Cardinal Spellman, Commissioner Happy Chandler, and both league presidents. Spellman walks over to the slow-moving Ruth.
“Babe, anytime you want me to come to your house I’ll be glad to give you Communion,” says Spellman. “No,” Ruth tells him. “Thanks just the same. I’ll come to your place.”
The game with Washington is scoreless until the 8th, when the Senators finally push across a run and take a 1–0 lead. Yogi pinch-hits and pops out to second to end the inning, but Ruth isn’t there to see any of it. Tired by the day’s events, he left with his wife and daughter before the inning began. Like every Yankee, Berra could see the Babe’s days were numbered and wished they could have won this game for him instead of losing, 1–0. Nearly 16 months later, Ruth would be dead, his body lying for two days inside the main gate of Yankee Stadium so baseball fans could pay their final respects.
The Yankees board a train at the end of April for a 15-day, four-city road trip, and Yogi is eager to reach their first stop: St. Louis. But he’s also fallen in love with the time the players spend together on the train—36 hours from New York to St. Louis, the game’s westernmost city—for he’s already learning more about baseball on these train trips than he’s ever learned in any clubhouse, dugout, or playing field. Sure, he enjoys playing cards on these trips, too—Berra’s ability to remember cards makes him tough to beat at gin rummy—but he loves the stories he hears and the knowledge he’s soaking up even more.
Like all major league teams, the Yankees have the last three cars on the train—a meal car that also serves as a buffer from the other travelers, then two sleeper cars. Surprisingly, the sleeping quarters of the intensely private DiMaggio is where they all meet, and no one is turned away. It’s here the players share what they’ve learned about opposing hitters and pitchers. And how to play the angles in each stadium, what infield is fast because they cut the grass low, which ones are slow because they constantly wet down the dirt. Which umpires call the outside strike, which ones call anything up in the strike zone a ball.
Yogi hated just about every minute he ever spent in a classroom, but he wouldn’t miss these lessons for the world.
He’s learned something else, too: where the traveling secretary tells you to sleep translates to your status on the roster. DiMaggio always has the berth in the middle of the car—it’s the quietest and smoothest ride on the train. The best players and the next day’s starting pitcher have berths on either side of Joe. The farther away from the center of the train, the shakier your status on the team. If the traveling secretary gives you the berth over the wheels—literally the shakiest place on the train—it’s entirely possible you’ll be demoted to the minors by the time the train makes its next stop.
Yogi makes the rounds on The Hill once the team reaches St. Louis. Everyone wants to know more about DiMaggio. Did Lawdie really bowl over Joe D? What was it like to meet the Babe? Is Bucky Harris ever going to put him behind the plate?
A reporter from the St. Louis Star-Times is tagging along with the hometown hero, asking many of the same questions. “I didn’t think I was even going to make the team,” says Yogi, turning away from another friend he hasn’t seen in months to answer the reporter. “It’s sure good to be with the Yankees—it’s wonderful!”
The reporter asks a few more questions, then ends with this: “How will the American League season turn out?”
“We’re going to win the pennant,” Berra answers matter-of-factly, as if the outcome is just a question of time.
Berra gets box seats for his parents, his kid sister, and his three older brothers, who watch him go hitless in four at-bats as the lowly Browns drub the Yankees, 15–5. It’s part of a slow start for a team that finds itself 8–8 on May 10, when Harris finally gives Berra his first start as catcher. Yogi’s struggling at the plate, hitting just .214—he’s had but three hits in 22 at-bats since running into DiMaggio—and hasn’t driven in a single run. Maybe a change of position will improve his luck.
And Berra’s bat comes alive from his first at-bat as the team’s catcher, rifling a single up the middle that drives in two runs. He finishes with three hits and four RBI to help his roommate Spec Shea to a 9–6 win. Berra hits his first home run on May 12—his 22nd birthday—and is hitting .290 in his last 11 games when he belts a two-run double off Cleveland ace Bob Feller on the last day of May, giving the Yankees a 4–3 lead in the 4th inning. Yogi’s roll ends three innings later when a foul tip off the bat of Cleveland’s George Metkovich slams into his right hand, leaving a deep gash that requires three stitches to close and two weeks to heal.
Yankee pitchers appreciate Berra’s increased run production after he moved behind the plate, but they’re telling Harris that Yogi still has too many shortcomings as a catcher. He can’t block pitches in the dirt, he’s clueless about what pitches to call, and no one ever knows where the ball is going when he tries to throw out a runner attempting a steal. Yogi knows the pitchers are right—his catching skills are crude, at best—and isn’t sure where he’ll play when his right hand heals.
The Yankees have moved into first place by the time Berra returns to the lineup on June 15. And he’s a bit surprised when Harris starts him behind the plate in the second game of a doubleheader against the Browns. But he quickly repays his manager’s faith in him when St. Louis, trailing 2–1, tries a suicide squeeze in the 9th inning. Berra sees the Browns’ Jeff Heath break from third just as Yankee pitcher Randy Gumpert releases his first pitch to Johnny Berardino, who drops a bunt right in front of the plate. Berra leaps out from behind the plate, grabs the ball, tags out Berardino, then shoves him out of the way and drops his glove and the ball on the sliding Heath to complete the double play.
Yogi turns around and tags umpire Eddie Rommel for good measure. It’s only the 14th unassisted double play by a catcher in baseball history.
The pitchers love Yogi’s enthusiasm and warmth—everybody on the team adores this kid—but they continue to bitch to Harris about Berra’s catching in the weeks that follow. The Yankee manager has the chance to send Yogi back to the outfield when left fielder Charlie Keller, troubled by a ruptured disk in his back since early June, goes down for the season on June 23. But Harris inserts speedy Johnny Lindell alongside DiMaggio and Tommy Henrich to form what might be the best fielding unit in the league. With Yogi still swinging a hot bat, Harris keeps Berra behind the plate and keeps peace with his pitchers by telling coach Charlie Dressen to call pitches from the bench when the young catcher gets into a jam.
No one realizes it just yet, but Harris has put together a combination that will make history. The Yankees win 28 of their next 31 games after Berra’s return, including the last 19 straight—tying the AL record that will stand another 55 years—and the pennant race is all but over by mid-July. Management commemorates the 19-game winning streak with gold watches for every player. Berra (four homers, 12 RBI, a .310 batting average), Henrich (6-29-.323), and DiMaggio (5-24-.339) drive the offense over the 31-game stretch. Allie Reynolds establishes himself as the No. 1 starter with five wins, Shea is 11–2 at the All-Star break, and Joe Page turns into the best relief pitcher in baseball.
The Yankees hold a commanding 11½-game lead over second-place Detroit on July 17, and what worries Berra most now is the speech he has to make when The Hill honors him before a game in St. Louis late next month. Yogi asks Bobby Brown to write something for him, but his friend declines.
“If I write it, you’ll forget it,” says Brown, who tells Berra to keep it short and simple. “One or two sentences to say thank you,” he tells Yogi. “That’s all you need.”
Yogi continues to play well, and he’s practicing his one big line—“I want to thank everyone who made this night possible”—every day when he feels his throat begin to ache in late August. Really ache. The team is in Cleveland on August 23 when Yogi starts to run a fever, too, and he’s sent to Cleveland’s Lutheran Hospital to see a throat specialist.
He’s only slightly better two days later when the doctors tell him he can travel to St. Louis for his big night under one condition: he leaves right after the ceremony and checks into a St. Louis hospital for further treatment.
While their favorite son struggles to regain his health, a committee of businessmen from The Hill raises enough money to buy a new car and golf clubs for the kid they still call Lawdie, a gold wristwatch for his father, and an armful of American Beauty roses for his mother. The Fawns Athletic Club has a diamond ring to give Yogi, too. All gifts are purchased from merchants on The Hill, just as they were on the night they honored Joe Garagiola a year ago.
At 7:15 p.m. on August 26, hundreds of The Hill’s residents gather at St. Ambrose Church, where they pile into cars bearing signs celebrating Berra and start the five-mile drive to Sportsman’s Park. The ceremony begins with Alderman Louis Berra—no relation; there are lots of Berras on The Hill—praising Lawdie and presenting each of the gifts. And then the moment Yogi has been dreading finally arrives.
Brown nods encouragingly as Yogi, all nerves and an achy throat, steps up to the microphone. “I want to thank the Stockham American Legion Post and the fans and everyone for coming out,” Yogi says, “and making this night necessary.”
Brown can’t hold back his laughter, nor can his friend standing beside him—Browns outfielder Jeff Heath—who damn near falls over he’s laughing so hard. Pretty soon everyone is laughing, even Yogi, who walks over to the box seats near the Browns dugout to take pictures with his family. As soon as that’s done, he’s on his way to the hospital.
It will be another four weeks before Berra gets over the infection in his throat and returns to the Yankee lineup.
His botched line?
That will last forever.
The Yankees clinch the pennant on September 14, doing it for the first time before a television audience. Some in management worried that televising every home game—along with 11 road games—would hurt attendance, and it’s true that tavern owners, among the first to buy TVs, draw plenty of customers to watch baseball games on this new technological toy. But the Yankees will draw more than two million fans for the second straight season. If anything, TV is turning even more Americans into baseball fans. And the Yankees are the game’s top draw.
Yogi is finally back in the lineup the next day and spends his last 10 games of the season unsuccessfully trying to regain his batting eye—he hits only .212 without a home run. Harris just wants him in shape to face the Dodgers, who won 94 games and the NL pennant with a team built around the speed of Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and Pete Reiser, and a young pitching staff anchored by 21-game winner Ralph Branca.
Harris announces he’s starting Berra and Shea—the first rookie battery in World Series history in the first televised postseason in history. Reporters ask if he thinks Yogi will be nervous facing the speedy Dodgers. “Yogi? No way,” Bucky says. “He has the emotions of a fire hydrant.”
This is one comment that hurts Berra. “Of course I’m nervous—this is the World Series; everyone gets butterflies!” he tells the writers. “I’m human, ain’t I?” Truth is, he’s scared to death that his throwing problems will be exposed on the big stage.
Reporters badger Berra about his matchup with Robinson, who led the National League with 29 stolen bases—without being caught once—to go with his .297 batting average and the countless insults and opponent-inflicted injuries. Yogi can relate, but this is the World Series, and all anyone wants to talk about is baseball.
“That Robinson is plenty fast,” Yogi says, “but he also gets an advantage of having three left-handers following him” who block the catcher’s view. “You can never see him.”
Robinson has a ready reply. “If I had an arm like his,” Jackie says, “I wouldn’t talk about it.”
The Yankees win the first two games at the Stadium, but Robinson and Reese both swipe bases easily, and reporters joke this could be the first World Series won without a catcher. Harris benches Yogi for Game 3 in Ebbets Field, though Berra hits the first pinch-hit homer in World Series history, a solo blast off Branca in the 7th inning that isn’t enough to prevent a 9–8 loss.
Harris comes back with Berra for Game 4 to catch Bill Bevens, who has struggled with his control all season—averaging 4.2 walks per nine innings—and finished 7–13, the only losing record on the Yankee staff. Bevens is wild again against Brooklyn, but he’s also unhittable and carries a no-hitter and a 2–1 lead—with eight walks—into the 9th inning. Three more outs and Bevens will have the first no-hitter in World Series history, and the Yankees will own a commanding 3–1 Series lead.
Berra can feel the sweat soaking his uniform as he walks onto the field for the bottom of the final inning. It feels like he can hear every one of the 33,443 Dodger fans screaming for a base hit. Bevens gets the first out on a fly ball to left, then walks the next batter. When Spider Jorgensen, the Dodgers’ No. 8 hitter, fouls out, Bevens is one out from history.
Dodger manager Burt Shotton makes two moves that change the game. First he sends Al Gionfriddo to pinch-run. Then he tells Pete Reiser, a tough hitter on the bench with a sore ankle, to pinch-hit for pitcher Hugh Casey. Bevens’ first pitch is a strike. Gionfriddo is off on the next pitch, which comes in low, and Berra’s throw to second is high. Gionfriddo slides in safely, a play that will haunt Berra the rest of his career. Sure, Gionfriddo got a great jump—something Harris will stress all offseason—but a better throw and this game makes history.
Harris surprises Berra—and everyone—by intentionally walking Reiser, putting the winning run on first. Shotton sends up another pinch-hitter, veteran Cookie Lavagetto, who had all of 69 at-bats in what will be his final season, and only two at-bats in the first three games of the Series.
Bevens throws a strike, and the roar of the crowd grows even louder. His next pitch is a fastball up and away that would have been—should have been—ball one. But Lavagetto reaches out and slaps the pitch to deep right field. The ball crashes off the wall, both runners score, and just like that the Dodgers are celebrating a 3–2 win. Bevens’ shot at history is gone, and so is his team’s lead in the Series, which is now tied 2–2.
Berra and Bevens sit stunned in a quiet Yankee clubhouse, both fighting back tears. Bevens, his arm aching after throwing more than 140 pitches, numbly mumbles answers to the media’s questions. All Berra can think about is his failure to throw out Gionfriddo for what would have been the game’s final out.
Yogi, his confidence weakened, watches Game 5 from the bench as Shea dazzles the Dodgers in a 2–1 Yankee win. And he’s on the bench in Game 6, too, until he replaces outfielder Johnny Lindell, who cracks a rib in the 3rd inning of what becomes an 8–6 Yankee loss.
Harris puts Berra in right field and bats the rookie third in the decisive Game 7 before 71,548 fans at Yankee Stadium, and Yogi is plenty nervous. He’s human, ain’t he? The Dodgers grab an early 2–0 lead, but the Yankees are up 3–2 in the 5th when Harris hands the ball to reliever Joe Page to rescue an exhausted pitching staff. Page responds brilliantly, retiring 13 straight Dodgers before allowing a one-out single in the 9th. No matter. Page gets the next hitter to rap into an inning-ending double play to close out a 5–2 victory, and the Yankees have their 11th World Series title, the most in baseball history.
Yogi collected only three hits in six games, but he’s thrilled to finish his rookie season with a World Series title. Some men play an entire career and never come close to winning one. Berra and his teammates have only just begun their boisterous clubhouse celebration when Larry MacPhail bursts in and makes more news. He is selling his stake in the team to Dan Topping and Del Webb—which he’d already discussed with his fellow owners—and resigning as President. The second part was news to his partners, who quickly agreed to release MacPhail from his contract.
“This is it,” says MacPhail, who leaves as abruptly as he’d entered.
Many of the veterans who have battled MacPhail for the last two years—especially DiMaggio—now have even more to celebrate. For Berra, the news is just part of the immense swirl of emotions at the end of an incredible rookie season. Harris was right—the fans fell in love with Yogi right from the start, forgiving his mistakes while cheering his home runs and hustle.
The writers never stopped writing about him, either, though much of what they wrote he could have done without. All part of playing in the big leagues, Berra figures, and what can be better than getting paid to play baseball? He proved he could perform on this level—hitting .280 with 11 home runs and 54 RBI in just 293 at-bats. Just imagine what he’d have done if he hadn’t missed more than six weeks with injury and illness.
Yes, he has to become a better catcher—or outfielder—but he’s a Yankee, he’s won a World Series title, and when he gets home, he’ll have a $5,830 World Series check—$330 more than his entire season’s salary—to show Mom and Pop.
Life can’t get much better than this, Yogi thinks as he gets ready to head back to St. Louis.
Oh, but it can.