The Fat Lady Sings....

[BaalChatzaf]

It ain't over till its over....Yogi Berra died -- aged 90. An American Icon.

It is almost like the Statue of Liberty disappearing.

R.I.P. Yogi

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

It's hard to imagine a world without Yogi.

Don't ever think that man was a clown.

--Brant

[Selene]

Having met him and Carmen every year as I was growing up, I can attest to the fact that he was one of the kindest and finest men/couple that I have ever met.

His life was an ode to joy and accomplishment.

A...

[Selene]

It's hard to imagine a world without Yogi.

Don't ever think that man was a clown.

--Brant

Yogi even gave a "Brantism" statement...

“Slump? I ain’t in no slump. … I just ain’t hitting.”

[Peter]

1. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
2. You can observe a lot by just watching.
3. It ain’t over till it’s over
4. It’s like déjà vu all over again.
5. No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.
6. Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.
7. A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
8. Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
9. We made too many wrong mistakes.
10. Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken.
11. You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.
12. You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.
13. I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.
14. Never answer an anonymous letter.
15. Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting.
16. How can you think and hit at the same time?
17. The future ain’t what it used to be.
18. I tell the kids, somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just try to get better.
19. It gets late early out here.
20. If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.
21. We have deep depth.
22. Pair up in threes.
23. Why buy good luggage, you only use it when you travel.
24. You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.
25. All pitchers are liars or crybabies.
26. Even Napoleon had his Watergate.
27. Bill Dickey is learning me his experience.
28. He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.
29. It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.
30. I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.
31. I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads.
32. I’m a lucky guy and I’m happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this night necessary.
33. I’m not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.
34. In baseball, you don’t know nothing.
35. I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?
36. I never said most of the things I said.
37. It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.
38. If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.
39. I wish everybody had the drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I’d never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never walked off the field.
40. So I’m ugly. I never saw anyone hit with his face.
41. Take it with a grin of salt.
42. (On the 1973 Mets) We were overwhelming underdogs.
43. The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.
44. Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.
45. Mickey Mantle was a very good golfer, but we weren’t allowed to play golf during the season; only at spring training.
46. You don’t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it’ll go.
47. I’m lucky. Usually you’re dead to get your own museum, but I’m still alive to see mine.
48. If I didn’t make it in baseball, I won’t have made it workin’. I didn’t like to work.
49. If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.
50. A lot of guys go, ‘Hey, Yog, say a Yogi-ism.’ I tell ’em, ‘I don’t know any.’ They want me to make one up. I don’t make ’em up. I don’t even know when I say it. They’re the truth. And it is the truth. I don’t know.

[Brant Gaede]

# 31--and all the rest.

[BaalChatzaf]

Those 50 Yogism's were brilliant. Thank you for the list.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

Having met him and Carmen every year as I was growing up, I can attest to the fact that he was one of the kindest and finest men/couple that I have ever met.

His life was an ode to joy and accomplishment.

A...

You were indeed fortunate knowing the man first hand...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yogi had one helluva great run at life. I'll miss him and his quirky sayings.

The truth is, dead men tell no tales, especially if they are deceased.

(a quip for sure, but said gently and sadly...)

Michael

[Selene]

oops

[Selene]

To his deathbed, Yogi insisted that Jackie Robinson was out...

 

 

I am still not sure...

 

A...

[Selene]

Now the Yankees won that game and lost the World Series to the Brooklyn Bums!!!

Broke this nine (9) old's heart!

If I remember correctly, Mel Allen cried on the air and might have been drunk while announcing that seventh game!

We watched the game on a small black and white screen with the radio on for the play by play.

Remember Jackie Robinson stealing home with Yogi Berra catching
By David Brown | Baseball Writer

Yogi Berra always asserted that Jackie Robinson was out at home plate. That's not what umpire Bill Summers said when Robinson swiped home in the eighth inning of Game 1 of the 1955 World Series, much to Berra's famous protestations. That might not even be what video evidence of the play shows. Robinson always kind of looked out.

Berra died Tuesday at age 90, but there's little doubt he ever got over that play at the plate. As perhaps you have before, judge for yourself:It's easy to see why Berra, given the moment, was so upset. Beyond the sheer audacity of Robinson's attempt, the image of Summers signaling "safe, safe, safe, safe" with his arms as Berra invades his personal space is the best part of the video. It's possible the ump was right; and Summers seems so sure, doesn't he? And wouldn't it be inelegant for modern video review to have been used for one of the most iconic moments in Major League Baseball history? Not so much if the call had been reversed, but because of the plodding delay it would have caused. It could have ruined the aesthetic of what we see above.

It's probably the most contentious moment in New York Yankees-Brooklyn Dodgers history. It's one of the few times the Bums got a leg up (or down) on the Bombers. The Yankees won Game 1, but Brooklyn won the Series in seven games.

The best part of the story might be Berra's dogged defense of his own reputation. In 2010, some 55 years later, an emissary on Berra's behalf even delivered a photo of the play to President Obama, signed by Berra, who had heard Obama refer to Robinson's famous steal. Tom Murrow delivered the photo in an envelope.

From Politico:

Murro said the president then began to walk away until Murro told him that he had a gift for him from Yogi Berra. This prompted Obama to "perk-up" and turn around in curiosity and ask, "What do we have?," according to Murro.

Murro opened the envelope. Upon seeing what was inside, Murro said Obama smiled and said, "That's fantastic," just before handing off the gift (as the pool report states) to Obama's trip director Marvin Nicholson.

And we remember Mr. President how you would not award this D-day vet the award that he deserved.

Took his gift though didn't you slime ball...

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25313476/remember-jackie-robinson-stealing-home-with-yogi-berra-catching

[Brant Gaede]

Robinson was out. The mitted ball was down and in front of the plate R hadn't yet hit.

Since NY won the first game they have no complaint losing in seven.

The Ump's view was partially blocked.

The best thing is what happened.

Someone (the batter--who almost never struck out) said the famous perfect Don Larsen WS game that ended with a call strike should have been ball 2, but that would have left the count at 2-2. Probably a case of umpire nerves. Imagine that perfect game ruined on the last out not the last out.

I watched Mantle and Marris doing their home run derby on our black and white set in our NJ home in 1961. Marris ended with 61* and Mantle with 54. What a one-two cleanup!

--Brant

*Marris hit his 60th with four less at bats than Ruth did

[Backlighting]

Adam said: "Now the Yankees won that game and lost the World Series to the Brooklyn Bums!!!

Broke this nine (9) old's heart! If I remember correctly, Mel Allen cried on the air and might have been drunk while announcing that seventh game! We watched the game on a small black and white screen with the radio on for the play by play"

I remember. Losing to those Bums was the ultimate disgrace.

Mel Allen drunk? lol. Nah, he was just bleeding pinstripes.

Amazing that Vin Scully was commentating for the Bums back then & he's still going strong at 87. I get the Dodgers games and recently heard him commentating. The guy's voice still sounds the same & he has some stories to tell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Scully

[Selene]

*Marris hit his 60th with four less at bats than Ruth did

Hmm I never heard that stat...very interesting.

I would love to see that play frame by frame if it could be done...

[Brant Gaede]

685 vs 689 (Wikipedia)

[Selene]

I remember. Losing to those Bums was the ultimate disgrace.

Mel Allen drunk? lol. Nah, he was just bleeding pinstripes.

Skully is brilliant.

However Joe, this is what I was talking about and it started with the crying on the air...

Mel’s gold standard was the Yankees. He became their Voice in 1940. In 1964, he was fired, at 51, at Allen’s peak as an institution.

Long-time New York Post columnist Maury (no relation) Allen observes that "no topic lured more mail than why the Yankees fired Mel." The Voice spent the next decade a non-person, revived by TV’s landmark 1976-96 "This Week In Baseball." Mine is the first book to explain sportscasting’s most mysterious dismissal.

It took quite awhile before he got fired in 1964.

Rumors were always afoot, he was a homosexual [never married]; alcoholic; heroin; stroke; psychosis; etc.

Up until I just looked this up, I never knew what the hell it was.

To America, Allen vanished overnight, ceasing to exist, for reasons he never grasped not understood. "The Yankees never held a press conference," he said. "They left people to believe whatever they wanted — and people believed the worst." Lacking any "

," Sports Illustrated wrote, "Allen became a victim of rumors. It was as if he had leprosy."

A writer told him to publicly deny the scuttlebutt. ?The gossip?s not in print,? Mel replied. ?There?s nothing to reply to.? One fiction was being ***: a then-career-killer. Even in 1957, Allen had felt obliged to apologize for being single. ?It has created problems and situations, some of which he finds distasteful,? wrote Leonard Shecter. ?He doesn?t think it?s a proper concern for the public prints. Still, he is forced to talk.? It wasn?t just Mel’s mother who wanted him to wed. ?Everybody in the family seems to spend most of their waking hours trying to marry me off,? said Allen. ?I think I must be getting to the point where most girls would consider me too old … for anything except a rocking chair.?

Nothing suggests that Mel was homosexual. ?Just a Mama?s boy,? said Stan Isaacs. ?She wanted him to get married, just to no one in particular?: At any rate, sex would not have affected him on-air. Allen blamed his salary. ?That theory doesn?t hold water,? the Post wrote, ?because [successor Joe] Garagiola did not come cheap.? Brother Larry cited Mel?s last statistician. ?Bill Kane had a limp, played it for sympathy, and would make all sorts of mistakes,? earning a flick of Allen?s scorecard. ?He started calling Mel a tyrant, saying he beat him. Just ridiculous. It all played a role.?

In 1962...

Lon Simmons did 1962 NBC Series Radio. ?He felt Mel was spaced out,? ESPN’s Jon Miller added, ?didn?t hear a word when Lon spoke to him off-air.? Casey Stengel would meander in ?a dozen directions, but never lose his point,? said Maury Allen. Mel would. ?I don?t think there?s any question that in the end he was on something. It was hard to have a conversation — almost an airy sense.?

Ding ding ding!

The Voice’s personal doctor was Max Jacobson, "known to his New York society clients as Dr. Feelgood," wrote Newsweek’s Evan Thomas. Jacobson treated actors, singers, and President John F. Kennedy: to nurse Ruth Mosse, ?a quack … out of his mind … a butcher,? often seeing 30 patients daily, including Mickey Mantle in September 1961. The Switcher had a virus. Allen told him: ?My doctor’s wonderful, the best there is.? Jacobson?s shot then struck Mick?s hip bone. Mosse might have warned them: ?When he gave an injection he would just spill the contents of his medical bag on the table and rummage around amid a jumble of unmarked bottles and nameless chemicals until he found what he was looking for.? He would then inject himself, spilling ?blood all over his whites.?

Holy crap...

In 1960, Jacobson began treating then-candidate Kennedy?s injured back. Next year he injected the now-President in Washington, Palm Beach, Paris, Vienna, and later Berlin. ?I feel much better,? Kennedy said after a shot. By mid-1961, wrote C. David Heymann, the President and First Lady had ?developed a strong dependence on amphetamines,? synthesized as early as 1887, popular by the 1950s, later known as ?speed,? and finally curbed by Federal law.

In his book, "President Kennedy," journalist Richard Reeves relates Jacobson prescribing a strange mix of amphetamines, vitamins, and human placenta.

?You don?t know what?s in that,? said Attorney General Robert Kennedy. ?I don?t care if it?s horse ****,? said his older brother. ?It works.?

PBS Television?s ?A Presidency Revealed? tells how Bobby Kennedy raided JFK?s Kennedy medicine cabinet, found pills, and had them analyzed by the Food and Drug Administration. At the time, Jacobson, flown from New York by pilot, patient, and Presidential photographer Mark Shaw, injected Kennedy up to thrice weekly. Irate, Bobby kicked him from the White House.

I had no clue to any of this...

Mel had nowhere to hide; nobody, help; no one, defend. Yet — this is the thing — he reacted gallantly, even nobly. TV?s John Walton says, ?Bad things come to all of us. What counts, son, is how you handle ?em.? Richard Nixon says, ?You won?t have Nixon to kick around.? Teresa Heinz Kerry tells a columnist ?to shove it.? Shunning victim-babble, Allen declined to slobber, blame, or rage.

Twib ?There is no radio/TV parallel to Mel Allen?s story,? said former Associated Presser Joe Reichler. ?Overnight he goes from the planet?s most famous sportscaster to falling off a cliff.? In response, he grieved, endured, and sought a last outpost of strength. In 1976, Mel joined "This Week In Baseball," voicing, becoming, sport’s highest-rated TV serial. To many, it seemed that he had never been away. In 1996, Allen died, at 83, The Grand Old Man of Broadcasting, having lived a stirring, then despairing, and ultimately redeeming life.

Thanks Joe...

http://curtsmith.mlblogs.com/2007/06/10/why-was-mel-allen-fired/

Thanks Brant.

A...

[syrakusos]

The catcher is the field captain. The catcher controls the game by signallng the pitches. Baseball and cricket are unusual among combat sports in that the defense controls the ball. For me, being from Cleveland, it was Jim Egan and then Sandy Alomar. But even above them, Yogi Berra was the greatest of them all.

You can observe a lot by watching.

[Selene]

The catcher is the field captain. The catcher controls the game by signallng the pitches. Baseball and cricket are unusual among combat sports in that the defense controls the ball. For me, being from Cleveland, it was Jim Egan and then Sandy Alomar. But even above them, Yogi Berra was the greatest of them all.

You can observe a lot by watching.

That is almost completely true. Some pitchers are known not to work that way. Roger Clemons and Bob Gibson for sure. Tom Seaver is a good possibility also.

Jorge Posada were known to have duked it out with Roger Clemens over that issue in various places in the ball park out of media sight.

I have never heard baseball referred to as a "combat" sport...clarify please?

Also, Doc Ellis pitched an ugly no hitter, 8 walks I believe, "high" on LSD...he does not remember much he said in his book.

I doubt if he let the catcher call that game lol.

A...

[Backlighting]

I remember. Losing to those Bums was the ultimate disgrace.

Mel Allen drunk? lol. Nah, he was just bleeding pinstripes.

Skully is brilliant.

However Joe, this is what I was talking about and it started with the crying on the air...

Mel’s gold standard was the Yankees. He became their Voice in 1940. In 1964, he was fired, at 51, at Allen’s peak as an institution.

Long-time New York Post columnist Maury (no relation) Allen observes that "no topic lured more mail than why the Yankees fired Mel." The Voice spent the next decade a non-person, revived by TV’s landmark 1976-96 "This Week In Baseball." Mine is the first book to explain sportscasting’s most mysterious dismissal.

It took quite awhile before he got fired in 1964.

Rumors were always afoot, he was a homosexual [never married]; alcoholic; heroin; stroke; psychosis; etc.

Up until I just looked this up, I never knew what the hell it was.

To America, Allen vanished overnight, ceasing to exist, for reasons he never grasped not understood. "The Yankees never held a press conference," he said. "They left people to believe whatever they wanted — and people believed the worst." Lacking any "

," Sports Illustrated wrote, "Allen became a victim of rumors. It was as if he had leprosy."

A writer told him to publicly deny the scuttlebutt. ?The gossip?s not in print,? Mel replied. ?There?s nothing to reply to.? One fiction was being ***: a then-career-killer. Even in 1957, Allen had felt obliged to apologize for being single. ?It has created problems and situations, some of which he finds distasteful,? wrote Leonard Shecter. ?He doesn?t think it?s a proper concern for the public prints. Still, he is forced to talk.? It wasn?t just Mel’s mother who wanted him to wed. ?Everybody in the family seems to spend most of their waking hours trying to marry me off,? said Allen. ?I think I must be getting to the point where most girls would consider me too old … for anything except a rocking chair.?

Nothing suggests that Mel was homosexual. ?Just a Mama?s boy,? said Stan Isaacs. ?She wanted him to get married, just to no one in particular?: At any rate, sex would not have affected him on-air. Allen blamed his salary. ?That theory doesn?t hold water,? the Post wrote, ?because [successor Joe] Garagiola did not come cheap.? Brother Larry cited Mel?s last statistician. ?Bill Kane had a limp, played it for sympathy, and would make all sorts of mistakes,? earning a flick of Allen?s scorecard. ?He started calling Mel a tyrant, saying he beat him. Just ridiculous. It all played a role.?

In 1962...

Lon Simmons did 1962 NBC Series Radio. ?He felt Mel was spaced out,? ESPN’s Jon Miller added, ?didn?t hear a word when Lon spoke to him off-air.? Casey Stengel would meander in ?a dozen directions, but never lose his point,? said Maury Allen. Mel would. ?I don?t think there?s any question that in the end he was on something. It was hard to have a conversation — almost an airy sense.?

Ding ding ding!

The Voice’s personal doctor was Max Jacobson, "known to his New York society clients as Dr. Feelgood," wrote Newsweek’s Evan Thomas. Jacobson treated actors, singers, and President John F. Kennedy: to nurse Ruth Mosse, ?a quack … out of his mind … a butcher,? often seeing 30 patients daily, including Mickey Mantle in September 1961. The Switcher had a virus. Allen told him: ?My doctor’s wonderful, the best there is.? Jacobson?s shot then struck Mick?s hip bone. Mosse might have warned them: ?When he gave an injection he would just spill the contents of his medical bag on the table and rummage around amid a jumble of unmarked bottles and nameless chemicals until he found what he was looking for.? He would then inject himself, spilling ?blood all over his whites.?

Holy crap...

In 1960, Jacobson began treating then-candidate Kennedy?s injured back. Next year he injected the now-President in Washington, Palm Beach, Paris, Vienna, and later Berlin. ?I feel much better,? Kennedy said after a shot. By mid-1961, wrote C. David Heymann, the President and First Lady had ?developed a strong dependence on amphetamines,? synthesized as early as 1887, popular by the 1950s, later known as ?speed,? and finally curbed by Federal law.

In his book, "President Kennedy," journalist Richard Reeves relates Jacobson prescribing a strange mix of amphetamines, vitamins, and human placenta.

?You don?t know what?s in that,? said Attorney General Robert Kennedy. ?I don?t care if it?s horse ****,? said his older brother. ?It works.?

PBS Television?s ?A Presidency Revealed? tells how Bobby Kennedy raided JFK?s Kennedy medicine cabinet, found pills, and had them analyzed by the Food and Drug Administration. At the time, Jacobson, flown from New York by pilot, patient, and Presidential photographer Mark Shaw, injected Kennedy up to thrice weekly. Irate, Bobby kicked him from the White House.

I had no clue to any of this...

Mel had nowhere to hide; nobody, help; no one, defend. Yet — this is the thing — he reacted gallantly, even nobly. TV?s John Walton says, ?Bad things come to all of us. What counts, son, is how you handle ?em.? Richard Nixon says, ?You won?t have Nixon to kick around.? Teresa Heinz Kerry tells a columnist ?to shove it.? Shunning victim-babble, Allen declined to slobber, blame, or rage.

Twib ?There is no radio/TV parallel to Mel Allen?s story,? said former Associated Presser Joe Reichler. ?Overnight he goes from the planet?s most famous sportscaster to falling off a cliff.? In response, he grieved, endured, and sought a last outpost of strength. In 1976, Mel joined "This Week In Baseball," voicing, becoming, sport’s highest-rated TV serial. To many, it seemed that he had never been away. In 1996, Allen died, at 83, The Grand Old Man of Broadcasting, having lived a stirring, then despairing, and ultimately redeeming life.

Thanks Joe...

http://curtsmith.mlblogs.com/2007/06/10/why-was-mel-allen-fired/

Thanks Brant.

A...

Thanks for the info Adam & Brant..

Now the other announcer I remember well was Phil "holy cow" Rizzuto.

I got to see Rizzuto play in the late 50's and appreciated him more as time went by.

"Rizzuto started his broadcasting career working alongside Mel Allen and Red Barber in 1957"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Rizzuto

[Selene]

I got to see Rizzuto play in the late 50's and appreciated him more as time went by.

"Rizzuto started his broadcasting career working alongside Mel Allen and Red Barber in 1957"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Rizzuto

He would show up with Yogi to those Masonic/Fire Department picnics in NJ also. Great guy. Remember we were 10 years old...can you imagine what our faces looked like? lol

Another Yankee, Joe Pepitone would come to our block party in Queens that I started. My cousin's husband was Italian, a stockbroker and a drinker, so Pepitone was a regular.

However, I was in my 20's then and not impressed with him...

[tmj]

Michael Kay broke down today on the Yes Network while relating the story of Yogi daily visiting Rizzuto at his assisted living community to spend time , play cards and hold the Scooters hand until he fell asleep. Teammates all the way.

[Brant Gaede]

Is my vague memory of Joe Pepitone as a lightweight and something of a flake correct?

--Brant

he had to be at least a very, very good player

[Selene]

Is my vague memory of Joe Pepitone as a lightweight and something of a flake correct?

--Brant

he had to be at least a very, very good player

Yes as to the first and he was ok as a ball player...8 yrs with the Yanks .258 BA averaged 26 HR and 79 RBIs

[Selene]

Did not know all this...damn, I might have had a better opinion of him and hung out with him lol

Pepitone has had plenty of first-hand experience with horseshit times and good times alike, as his mind-blowing 1975 autobiography, Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud – reissued this May by Sports Publishing – vividly attests. An All-Star, Gold Glove-winning first baseman for the New York Yankees, Pepitone unsuccessfully tried to out-run his personal demons by playing even harder off the field than on it. He partied with Frank Sinatra, screwed at least half the female population of New York City and Chicago and blew his salary on everything from boats to bespoke hairpieces. He ended up broke, out of baseball by his early thirties and (as the epilogue to the new edition of his book recounts) doing time on Rikers Island on a questionable drug charge.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/features/joe-pepitone-on-smoking-weed-screwing-with-sinatra-and-seinfeld-20150709#ixzz3mdCj0EFA

Caution, it is the Rolling Stone...