August 16, 1975: Yogi Berra drops in to watch son Dale play for Niagara Falls Pirates

Baseball fans in the small-town New York-Penn League discovered an extra reason to go to games in the summer of 1975. On certain nights, there was a chance that beloved Hall of Famer Yogi Berra might join them in the stands at one of the short-season Class A loop’s modest ballparks.

Yogi and his wife, Carmen, made several trips that July and August to communities like Auburn, Elmira, and Oneonta to watch their son, Dale, play with the Niagara Falls (New York) Pirates. Dale, an infielder, had been the Pittsburgh Pirates’ first-round pick in the June 1975 amateur draft out of high school in Montclair, New Jersey.

One such parental visit took place at Falcon Park in Auburn on Saturday, August 16, when the Pirates faced off against the Auburn Phillies. Unlike other nights, Yogi didn’t see his son get any hits. But he did see a good, close game, decided by an eighth-inning rally, as Dale’s Pirates upended the Phillies, 5-2.

Yogi and Carmen Berra had three athletic sons. Yogi’s baseball schedule limited his opportunities to see them play in high school, but the Berras made a point of supporting the boys when they entered professional sports.1 In August 1971, Yogi took time off from coaching first base for the New York Mets to appear at a dinner for baseball boosters in Marion, Virginia, where his oldest son, Larry, was playing for a Rookie-level Mets affiliate.2 Larry Berra played parts of two seasons in the lower levels of the Mets system before injuries forced him to retire.3

Middle son Tim opted for the football field. He starred at wide receiver at the University of Massachusetts and played a single season, 1974, with the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League. Yogi, by then the Mets’ manager, was on hand at the Mets’ ballpark, Shea Stadium, on October 20, 1974, to see Tim’s Colts beat the New York Jets 35-20.4 Tim Berra turned in a career-best 54-yard kickoff return, helping the Colts to one of only two wins that season.5

When Dale began his career within driving distance of the New York City area,6 it was a given that his parents would get there. During the 1975 All-Star break, Yogi and Carmen headed upstate to watch Dale play at Niagara Falls and Elmira.7 “I wanted to play golf for three days. But my wife wanted to go see Dale play, so we’re going to see Dale play,” Yogi wisecracked.8

On July 14 the Berras watched Dale hit a long home run and a single and score three runs in a 14-6 Pirates victory over the Batavia Trojans.9 Two days later against Elmira, Dale went hitless in his first six at-bats in a doubleheader, then came through in his seventh and final at-bat by hitting a two-run double to tie the second game. He scored the winning run when the next hitter singled.10

The Mets fired Yogi as manager on August 6,11 and he used some of his newfound free time to watch his son. He was spotted in Oneonta on August 15, watching Dale go 2-for-4 and score three runs as the Pirates swamped the Oneonta Yankees, 13-2.12

By all accounts, Yogi remained friendly and accessible to fans and autograph seekers during these visits. But he laid down a polite ground rule with reporters after his firing: No discussions of his future. “I have several interesting situations to think over and I want to stay in baseball,” he said. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever done. But that’s all the comment I want to make right now.”13

As both Yogi and Dale hoped for future major-league opportunities, the Pirates met the Phillies at Falcon Park on August 16. Some 1,450 fans turned out. General Electric, a major local employer, had provided tickets to its employees.14

Auburn and Niagara Falls were closely matched. Both teams had played .500 ball in the season’s first half, which ended July 26. The Pirates, managed by Glenn Ezell, were third in the six-team league at 17-17, six games behind first-place Newark. The Phillies, managed by June Raines,15 were a half-game behind Niagara Falls at 16-17.16 Both teams were slumping badly so far in the second half. The Pirates had the league’s worst second-half record at 5-12, while the Phillies were just one game better at 6-11.17 The Auburn team had lost nine straight games.18

When starting pitcher Mark Tapia was injured in warm-ups,19 Ezell gave the start to righty Walter Cieply – one of only three starts Cieply made in 20 appearances that season. A 24th-round draft pick of the Pirates in June 1974 out of high school in Western Pennsylvania, Cieply went 1-3 with a 3.60 ERA in 1975.

Lefty Leo McDaniels got the start for the Phillies.20 Like Cieply, 1975 was his only recorded season in pro ball. McDaniels split the season between Auburn and Class A Spartanburg in the Western Carolinas League. At Auburn, he went 1-5 with a 5.81 ERA in 14 games, nine of which were starts; at Spartanburg he pitched exclusively in relief, going 0-2 with a 6.00 ERA in 18 games. Over the full season, McDaniels yielded 88 hits and 63 walks in 83 innings, striking out 59.

McDaniels’ wildness contributed to a Niagara Falls run in the first inning. He hit center fielder and leadoff batter Jerry McDonald with a pitch. One out later, McDaniels walked Berra; after another out, he walked right fielder Fred Rein to load the bases. Shortstop Dan DeBattista, whose .288 average for the full season led the Pirates, singled into right field to score McDonald. Dale Berra tried to score on the hit as well, but a perfect throw from right fielder Eddie De La Cruz to catcher Steve Kruzelock cut him down.21

After a few scoreless frames, Auburn tied the game in the bottom of the third. Shortstop Tim Pagnozzi, who hit only .186 for the season, walked and stole second base.22 Center fielder Dennis Hawkins hit an infield single that shortstop DeBattista deflected. When DeBattista fell down and couldn’t pursue the ball, Pagnozzi took advantage and sprinted home to tie the game, 1-1. Tim Pagnozzi never made the majors – 1975 was his only pro season – but his younger brother Tom played 12 seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals.23

More free passes handed Auburn a lead in the fifth. With two out, second baseman José Moreno singled to left field. Running with the pitch, he moved to third on Hawkins’ single to center field. Cieply issued back-to-back bases on balls to third baseman Ken O’Brien and Kruzelock to give the Phillies a free run and a 2-1 advantage.

In the sixth, Ezell turned over pitching duties to Pete Summers, a righty from Georgia who split time between catching, the outfield, and the mound.24 Summers pitched in only four games that season, but in this one, he was outstanding. Over four innings he allowed only one single and no walks while striking out nine Phillies. The hit was collected by 15-year-old left fielder Orlando Isales, a native of Puerto Rico who went on to play three games with the 1980 World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies.25

While Summers shut down the home team, his Pirates teammates finally rallied against McDaniels in the eighth. First baseman Vaughn Robbins and Rein hit back-to-back singles – the latter a hot line drive that third baseman O’Brien did well to stop but couldn’t turn into an out. DeBattista bunted; McDaniels threw to third too late to get the lead runner, loading the bases. Raines went to his bullpen for right-hander Bobby Wilson, a month shy of 20 years old and pitching his second and last pro season.

Designated hitter Tom Holliday, a .230 hitter for the full season, hit next. He’d struck out in his first three at-bats. This time he drove a ball just inside the right-field foul line for one of his two triples that season. The hit made the score 4-2, Niagara Falls. McDonald grounded to O’Brien, who booted it, allowing Holliday to add an insurance run. (Speaking of baseball families, Holliday was the father of future big-leaguer Matt Holliday and the grandfather of Jackson Holliday, the number-one pick by the Baltimore Orioles in the June 2022 amateur draft.)

Summers closed out the Phillies in the ninth to wrap up the win in 2 hours and 25 minutes. McDaniels took the loss. The Auburn newspaper noted that Yogi Berra stuck around to sign autographs afterward, adding, “It was a real treat for the youngsters to see and meet Yogi.”26

Auburn and Niagara Falls both finished in the league’s bottom half.27 Dale Berra led the Pirates in RBIs (49) and tied for second on the team in hits (69) and home runs (3). At season’s end, he was named to the league’s all-star team and won an annual award honoring the New York-Penn player predicted to go furthest in pro baseball.28 After two more seasons in the minors, Dale earned his first promotion to the majors late in the 1977 season. He played parts of 11 seasons in the big leagues, including a brief period in April 1985 when Yogi was his manager with the New York Yankees.29

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data. The author thanks Elise Lia of the Niagara Falls (New York) Public Library for research assistance, and John Fredland for contributions during the review process.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of minor-league games, but the August 17, 1975, editions of the Niagara Gazette (Niagara Falls, New York) and Auburn (New York) Sunday Citizen published box scores.

Image of 1980 Topps card #292 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Steve Weller, “Yogi’s Boy Makes Few Boo Boos,” Buffalo Evening News, July 15, 1975: IV, 51. Yogi Berra told another reporter that he’d only seen Dale play twice in high school. Milton Richman (United Press International), “Berra’s Son Follows Father’s Footsteps,” St. Cloud (Minnesota) Daily Times, July 1, 1975: 22.

2 Red Foley, “Kooz 3-Hits Giants, 5-1; Krany, Agee Homer,” New York Daily News, August 26, 1971: 118. Larry Berra’s brief career included two games in the New York-Penn League with Batavia in 1972.

3 “Yogi’s Son Retiring as Player,” Batavia (New York) Daily News, June 30, 1972: 8.

4 Associated Press, “Yogi Berra’s Son on Pro Gridiron,” Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review, November 17, 1974: Sports, 1; “Tim Berra,” Pro Football Reference, accessed July 2024, https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/B/BerrTi20.htm; “1974 Baltimore Colts,” Pro Football Reference, accessed July 2024, https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/clt/1974.htm.

5 Bill Tanton, “Berra Makes Big Play in Yogi’s Ball Park,” Baltimore Evening Sun, October 21, 1974: C6; Pro Football Reference page for Tim Berra.

6 New York City to Niagara Falls is a lengthy drive – a little under seven hours, according to Google Maps in February 2024. But other New York-Penn communities such as Auburn (about 5 hours), Elmira (about 4½) and Oneonta (about 4) would have been somewhat more accessible.

7 “That’s Our Boy” (photo and caption), Buffalo Evening News, July 15, 1975: IV: 51; Mark Fleisher, “Yogi Weathers Dunn Storm,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, July 17, 1975: 18.

8 Associated Press, “Yogi Berra Takes Busman’s Holiday,” Albuquerque Journal, July 13, 1975: E5.

9 “That’s Our Boy.”

10 “Pioneers, N. Falls Split,” Elmira Star-Gazette, July 17, 1975: 11.

11 Associated Press, “Mets Fire Yogi Berra …,” Montpelier (Vermont) Times-Argus, August 7, 1975: 18.

12 “O-Yanks Lose 13-2,” Binghamton (New York) Press and Sun-Bulletin, August 16, 1975: 3B.

13 “Yogi’s O-Yank Visit to Criticize a Berra,” Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin, August 17, 1975: 1B. Berra returned to the Yankees in 1976 as a member of his former teammate Billy Martin’s coaching staff.

14 “Pirates Rally for 5-2 Win; Yogi Watches Son Play,” Auburn (New York) Sunday Citizen, August 17, 1975: 9; Bob Mazzeo, “Bob Feller to Appear at Old-Timers Game,” Syracuse (New York) Post-Standard, August 16, 1975: 7. As the headline indicates, Hall of Famer Feller appeared at an Auburn Phillies game about a week after the game covered in this story.

15 Raines, a catcher, played 10 seasons of minor-league baseball between 1959 and 1968. The 1975 Auburn team was his only minor-league managing job. The following year he took the head baseball coaching job at the University of South Carolina, replacing former Yankee star – and former Yogi Berra teammate – Bobby Richardson.  “Raines to Replace Richardson,” Columbia (South Carolina) Record, August 13, 1976: A18.

16 New York-Penn League final first-half standings as printed in the Elmira Star-Gazette, July 27, 1975: 3D.

17 New York-Penn League second-half standings as printed in the Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle, August 15, 1975: 2D.

18 “Pirates Win as Summers Stars in Relief,” Niagara Gazette (Niagara Falls, New York), August 17, 1975: 1C.

19 “Pirates Win as Summers Stars in Relief.”

20 As of February 2024, Baseball-Reference listed the pitcher under the name Leo McDaniel. However, the Auburn newspaper’s game coverage calls him McDaniels, and he is listed as McDaniels in the box scores of the Auburn and Niagara Falls newspapers. Newspaper archive searches from 1975 also turned up multiple other newspaper references to Leo McDaniels pitching for Auburn.

21 All play-by-play action in this story is based on “Pirates Rally for 5-2 Win; Yogi Watches Son Play” and “Pirates Win as Summers Stars in Relief.”

22 There are discrepancies between the action described in game stories and the information in box scores. “Pirates Rally for 5-2 Win; Yogi Watches Son Play” says Pagnozzi “strolled,” which suggests a walk, and the box score does not credit him with a hit. At the same time, the box score only credits Pirates pitcher Cieply with two walks, and the story says he walked two Phillies batters (O’Brien and Kruzelock) in the fifth inning. Meanwhile, “Pirates Win as Summers Stars in Relief” says Pagnozzi singled, but the accompanying box score again does not credit him with a hit. After considering all sources, the author of this story believes it’s most likely that Pagnozzi walked, and the walk total in Cieply’s pitching line is incorrect.

23 Clay Henry, “Cards’ Pagnozzi Learned His Place Was Behind Plate,” Tulsa (Oklahoma) World, January 14, 1992: B3. Tom Pagnozzi won three Gold Gloves at catcher and made the National League All-Star team in 1992.

24 The Auburn newspaper’s game account noted that Summers was listed in the program as a catcher. According to Baseball-Reference, he played in 30 games in 1975, including 15 at catcher, 4 in the outfield, and 4 on the mound. In Summers’ only other pro season, 1976, he appeared exclusively on the mound for Class A Charleston.

25 Berra, Moreno, and Isales were the only players in the August 16 game who later reached the majors. Future major-leaguers who played for these teams in 1975, but did not appear on August 16, were Bryan Clark and Al Holland (Niagara Falls) and Don McCormack, Dickie Noles, and Jeff Schneider (Auburn).

26 “Pirates Rally for 5-2 Win; Yogi Watches Son Play.”

27 The six-team New York-Penn League did not hold postseason playoffs in 1975. The Newark (New York) Co-Pilots, a Milwaukee Brewers farm team, won the league championship with a 47-20 record. “NY-P League Champions” (photo and caption) and Norm Jollow, “Not Even Flu Can Stop Rampaging Co-Pilots,” both Geneva (New York) Times, August 25, 1975: 18.

28 “Schmidt, Waller Are Stars,” Elmira Star-Gazette, August 26, 1975: 23. The team also included future major-league manager Terry Bevington, then catching for Oneonta. Although it is not named in this article, the New York-Penn’s annual award for the player expected to go furthest in pro baseball was traditionally called the Stedler Award. The recipient two seasons earlier was future Hall of Famer Robin Yount.

29 Yogi Berra began the 1985 season as the Yankees’ manager but was fired on April 28, replaced by Billy Martin. Bill Madden, “Billy Replaces Yogi,” New York Daily News, April 29, 1985: 40. Dale Berra played 48 games with the Yankees that season, including 11 under his father.