60 YEARS AGO TODAY:
10/17/64 – The New York Yankees fire Manager Yogi Berra two days after losing The World Series to The St. Louis Cardinals
Ouch!!! He got them to the World Series ... and then got FIRED because they lost it?
That's harsh!!!
The Yankees won 99 games that year under Berra's leadership ... it was his FIRST season as a manager, after playing for the Bronx Bombers for 16 years, during which time The Yankees won 14 championships. (He was named to the American League All Star Team 18 times during that stretch. He also led The Yankees in RBI's seven times during this era ... coming in ahead of players like Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio in this department!)
The photo of Berra leaping into pitcher Don Larsen's arms after Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history is priceless ... and probably one of the most famous and recognized sports photos of all time.
After The Yankees fired him, Berra moved across town and joined The Mets, first as a coach (under the great Casey Stengel) and then as their manager, ultimately taking THAT team to The World Series, too, in 1973. (Sadly, they lost that series to the Oakland A's.) Incredibly, The Mets' record that year was just barely over .500 (82-79) ... but that was enough to win the East Division ... where they went on to beat The Cincinnati Reds in the playoffs.
Apparently it was "No Hard Feelings" as far as The Yankees were concerned ...
In 1972, they retired his uniform number (8) ... and later that same year Yogi was
elected into The Major League Baseball Hall Of Fame.
The Yankees hired Berra back in 1976 as a coach ... and then named him manager in 1984. After finishing third that season, George Steinbrenner fired him again, 16 games into the 1985 season.
YOGI The Player:
He played 19 seasons in the major leagues ... 1946–1963 and 1965), all but the last of those seasons was for The New York Yankees. (Yogi took his last Major League At Bat on May 9th, 1965, just three days shy of his 40th birthday.)
While with The Yankees, he was an 18-time All Star and won TEN World Series Championships, more than any other player in MLB history.
He had a career batting average of .285, slugging 358 home runs and recording 1430 runs batted in. (Seven times he led The Yanks in this department ... a pretty impressive stat when you consider some of the all-time greats that played for this team during this era.)
He is one of only six players to win the American League Most Valuable Player Award three times ... and is widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history. He was elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame in 1972, the same year The Yankees retired his uniform number (8.)
After being fired as The Yankees' Manager after losing the 1964 World Series, Berra went straight across town and joined The New York Mets, first as a coach, then as a player (for part of the 1965 season), and then as their manager, spending ten years in The Mets' organization, before returning to The Yankees in 1976, first as a coach (for eight years) and then as their manager (for the next two.) When he was fired again, he went and coached The Houston Astros until his retirement in 1989.
Besides his All Star legacy, Berra caught the only perfect game in World Series history. A little known fact is that he was also the first player in Major League Baseball history to pinch hit a home run in a World Series game (1947.) In all, he caught 63 World Series games ... and still holds the Major League Record for number of shut-outs caught (with 173.)
In 1962, he caught all 22 innings of an extra-innings game between The Yankees and The Detroit Tigers, which took just over seven hours to complete.
Sadly, Berra died on September 22nd, 2015
Berra was also known for his "Yogi-isms," some of which are still repeated to this day ...
"It ain't over 'til it's over"
"It's deja vu all over again"
"You can observe a lot by watching"
When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which was accessible by two routes, Berra told him "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded"
"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore"
If you can't imitate him, don't copy him"
"Ninety percent of the game is half mental."
And perhaps most accurately, "I really didn't say everything I said"
