Bye Bye, Yogi

I may have grown up in New York, but I was never a Yankees fan. I always rooted for the scraggly underdogs, i.e. The Mets, and then when I married into a Red Sox family, well….. But I always loved Yogi Berra — who didn’t?– and the fact that he was affiliated with both teams during his career, playing and managing the Yankees and then managing The Mets, made him a New Yorker through and through. I was very sorry to hear of his passing this week at the age of 90.
Yogi was one of the great baseball players of all time. People sometimes forget that. His main position was as catcher, but he was a great batter as well, excelling in hitting pitches well out of the strike zone. As a player, he was voted MVP of the American League three times and was an All-Star every year from 1948-1962. As a Manager, he was one of the few to shepherd his team to championships in both the American and National Leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982.
But most of the world knows him for his hilarious quotations and the fact that he never let his lack of eloquence stop him from saying what was on his mind, even if nobody else could understand it. It’s no wonder that the cartoon character, Yogi Bear, was named after him. So, as my tribute to the one and only Yogi Berra, I’d like to collect a bunch of his sayings all in one place. Earmark this page. You’ll never know when you’ll need to quote him:
* ‘It’s deja vu all over again.’
* ‘Baseball is 90 percent mental, and the other half is physical.’
* ‘A nickel isn’t worth a dime anymore.’
* ‘It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.’
* ‘The future ain’t what it used to be.’
* ‘I wish I had an answer to that question because I’m tired of answering that question.’
* ‘Little League Baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.’
*  ‘If you can’t imitate someone, don’t copy him.’
* ‘Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.’
* ‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it.’
* ‘In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.’
* ‘You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.’
* ‘You can observe a lot just by watching.’
* ‘I really didn’t say everything I said.’
* ‘There are some people who, if they don’t already know, you can’t tell them.’
* When asked if he wanted his pizza cut into four or eight slices: ‘Better make it four. I don’t feel that hungry.’
* ‘If you don’t know where you are going, you may end up someplace else.’
* ‘Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too.’
* When attending an opening day ceremony and seeing the scoreboard light up with names of deceased ball players: ‘Boy, I hope I never see my name up there.’
* ‘It ain’t over til it’s over.’