Drooker: Yogi Berra, it still ain’t over
From SABR member Don Drooker at Mastersball on October 2, 2015:
Yogi Berra went 4-for-4 one night but when he looked at the box score in the newspaper the next morning, it showed him as 3-for-4. By the time Yogi arrived at the ballpark, he was significantly steamed and located the official scorer to complain. The scorer apologized and told him that it was a typographical error. Yogi’s response? “No, it wasn’t…it was a clean single up the middle.”
One of the few advantages of being a baseball fan of a certain age is that you have the memories of baseball tucked into a special compartment in your brain. This is especially true of players and games you actually witnessed in person and whenever a record is broken or a milestone is reached, you can bring up those mental snapshots from different decades and enjoy looking at them again. This photo album also emerges when a legendary player passes away and it reminds us to always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
As a youngster who spent countless days and nights in the bleachers at Fenway Park, I admittedly hated the Yankees. My beloved Red Sox had Ted Williams and a few other decent players like Jim Piersall and Jackie Jensen, but the dreaded Bronx Bombers were a veritable All-Star team. Those old snapshots in my brain include Mickey Mantle hitting the hardest ball I’ve ever seen, Billy Martin getting his uniform dirty before the 2nd inning, Whitey Ford throwing a pitch that dropped three feet and Ryne Duren (wearing thick glasses) throwing his first warm-up pitch all the way to the backstop at 100 MPH. In the eight seasons from 1952-59, the Yankees won six AL pennants and four World Series titles. The Red Sox were also-rans and the crowds were sometimes thin because if people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.
Read the full article here: http://mastersball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4129:it-still-aint-over&catid=966:roterissie-duck&Itemid=78
Originally published: October 2, 2015. Last Updated: October 2, 2015.