We hated the New York Yankees. Nothing got Detroit Tigers baseball fans to erupt more than beating them and enjoying a rep as a Yankee nemesis in the decades after World War II. The Yankees — they were just too good. Too rich, too cocky and too loaded with stars — from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to DiMaggio, Rizutto, Mantle and Maris or Reggie Jackson. Nuts to them, neighborhood seniors muttered — and add some choice profanity.
Except when it came to Yogi Berra.
The chunky little guy who was their catcher always elicited smiles when he came to bat even when he killed you with a scratch single or clutch home run on an impossible pitch out of the strike zone. Or when he handled pitchers like a confident dancer and used the plate as his personal parking space. But that wasn’t the half of it. The whole story is in the documentary film “It Ain’t Over.” Now available on Netflix or Amazon Prime, it surprises profoundly.
It reveals a man we wrote off as an American mascot/comic rather than the hero that he was.
When was the last time we saw tough men crying with misery because their manager got fired? We did with Yogi after the abrupt firing orchestrated by one of the great jerks in sport, George Steinbrenner. It caused a chasm across all sport for years. Why? Because his players knew better than any fans what made Yogi Berra who he was.
For instance: Yogi had a baseball contract out of high school but refused it to fight in World War II and was nearly killed during the Normandy landing. He learned baseball at working-class ballfields and took a chance on love and never looked back as a father and husband in a marriage rare for its commitment to the very end. He valued people for who they were, not their images or power. His overlooked baseball stats were better than many superstars.
What obscured this was the Yogi mythology hyped by media: Yogi-isms, scripted or actual, played by Yogi and family for fun and income. The title line of the film is from one of them, along with quotes like “It’s like deja vu all over again” and my favorite, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
The jokes became set in American folklore. But the World Series rings covering all fingers or his depth with players he managed were not scripted. Nor his respect for players of color when few white players dared. From Jackie Robinson to Elston Howard to Mariano Rivera and more, they were gifted colleagues and several pay homage to Yogi in this documentary anchored by his journalist granddaughter, Lindsay Berra, with potent comments from broadcasters Win Scully and Bob Costas to baseball great Derek Jeter and actor/comedian Billy Crystal.
The funny guy in a commercial isn’t even close to the man or great American odyssey that made him.
As we mark the terrible sacrifice of the dead as the 80th anniversary of D-Day passes and the anniversary of our founding as well, plainly the simple decency of men like Yogi Berra are what the best of us is about.
Because there really is no legend with Yogi Berra. Just the truth. And the truth is always true. Right, Yogi? Exactly.