Ken Berwitz
My last blog drew from an article by Lee Smith
Mr. Smith, apparently, is also an avid baseball fan – or, at any rate, an avid Yogi Berra fan. And he has written what amounts to a beautiful obituary for Mr. Berra, who passed away on Tuesday. You can read it here, and please do.
Personally, I saw Yogi Berra play many times at the old Yankee Stadium. On TV, of course (all the televised games were on WPIX Channel 11 in those days). But also in person.
From 1955 to 1961 we lived in Kew Garden Hills, Queens. And when I was old enough (from about 1958 on), my friends and I would go to the stadium a lot.
It wasn\’t what you\’d call an easy commute: we had to take the Q44 bus to the subway, the E train to 7th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, and then change to the D train, which took us to 161st St. in the Bronx., across the street from the stadium. Then, after the game, we had to reverse field and take the D train, the E train and the Q44 to get back home.
We always tried to get there right around when the gates opened. That was because the grandstand seats, which were in the third deck and cost $1.30 (big money in those days, but worth it compared to the 75 cent bleachers), were situated behind the structural poles (remnants of the early 1920\’s architecture when Yankee Stadium was built). Though necessary to hold the stands up, they were major obstructions if you sat more than a few rows behind them.
But if you got there real early, you could get seats in the first or second row, right behind home plate. That gave you a virtually unobstructed view, and a reason to laugh at the suckers who paid a whopping $2.50 each for the reserved seats right in front of you.
Then, after the game, you could stand around by the players\’ entrance and see all the players leave, headed for their cars, which were in an outdoor lot nearby. If you were there early enough you could see them come in too – even talk with them and/or get an autograph every now and then.
We kids went there because we loved baseball, and because the Yankees always seemed to be in the world series (from 1949 to 1964 – a 16 year stretch – they were in 14 of them…and won 9. No other team has ever come close to that.)
We never thought much about how many hall of famers we saw. In 1958, guys like Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford were just Yankees who played every year. Their existence as Yankees, and the quality of their play, was a given. Who knew they\’d all wind up in the Hall of Fame (as did Enos Slaughter, who was toward the end of his career that year (he played in 1959 and then called it quits). Heck, even two of the Yankee announcers – Mel Allen (for his announcing) and Phil Rizzuto (for his greatness as a shortstop) wound up in the Hall.
Yogi Berra was the last living Hall Of Fame Yankee from those years. He was also one of the last two living Yankees who played on their 1947 World Series championship team – the other (and now the very last one) being the remarkable Bobby Brown, who played 3d base for the Yankees through 8 years and 5 World Series Championships, then retired from baseball to be, of all things, a cardiologist…..then eventually retired as a doctor, got back into baseball, and was Vice President of the Texas Rangers, and, finally, President of the American League.
Apart from his greatness on the ball field, Yogi Berra was known for a bunch of highly amusing “sayings” (most of which he probably never said, I\’m guessing. That happens when you\’re a legend).
But he was even better known, among his fellow players and apparently just about everyone else who ever met him, as a genuinely nice man who never, ever was overtaken by his great fame. People loved him because he always was that kid from The Hill in Saint Louis, who grew up with next to nothing, and was just as comfortable with the storekeepers and construction workers as the celebrities who sought him out.
Put another way, some people make it and never look back. Yogi made it and never left.
May he rest in peace.
