Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask by Jon Pessah. Little, Brown, and Company. 577 pages. 2020
****
I grew up as a New York Yankees fan, probably because in the 1960’s the Yankees were often on television on Saturday afternoons. There were no ESPN or regional sports networks on which all of a team’s games were broadcast. My favorite player was Mickey Mantle. I did not know much about Yogi Berra as he completed his Yankees career when I was still quite young.
I am glad I read Jon Pessah’s well-researched and enjoyable biography of Berra – the result of hundreds of hours of interviews with more than 150 people conducted during a more than four-year span. I had no idea how impressive Berra’s career was. He won thirteen (ten as a player and three as a coach) World Series championships, was a fifteen time All-Star and was the American League’s Most Valuable Player three times.
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Berra was known as Lawdie, the youngest son of Italian immigrants. His proper name in Italian, the language of the Berra household, was Lorenzo Pietro Berra. He was born in 1925 and grew up on “The Hill”, an Italian neighborhood in St. Louis. His best (and life-long) friend, who lived directly across the street on Elizabeth Avenue was Joe Garagiola. On a recent trip to the Hill, my wife and I saw both of their photos in the restaurant we had lunch in and in a bakery we visited.
He got his nickname of Yogi, from a minor league player after a number of teammates had seen a movie featuring yogis in India. Yogi was often mocked for his physical appearance.
Yogi joined the Navy at age eighteen and served as a World War II Navy gunner at D-Day at both Utah and Omaha beaches before joining the Yankees.
Yogi could always hit, but was initially criticized as a catcher, shuttling between catcher and the outfield. It was the coaching of Bill Dickey that turned him into an excellent catcher.
The author writes that Berra is arguably the best catcher in baseball history. In his seventeen full seasons, he had 358 home runs, 1,430 RBIs, 2,148 hits, and a .285 batting average. Berra caught two no-hitters for Allie Reynolds in 1951 and was the catcher for Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, the only perfect game in World Series history. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
Berra would later manage the Yankees and the New York Mets and serve as a coach for the Yankees and the Houston Astros. The manner in which Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had him fired led to Berra staying away from Yankee Stadium for fourteen years, until Steinbrenner came and apologized to him.
Yogi would become known as an excellent marketer and for his “Yogi-isms,” such as “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” “It’s deja vu all over again, and “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi loved to play golf, and we once saw him play in a pro-am at the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando.
Yogi married Carmen Short, who he met as a waitress at Biggie and Charlie’s Steak House (later renamed Stan Musial and Biggie’s Steak House). They were married sixty-five years and had three children.
Berra died in September 2015, a few months before President Obama would honor him with the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in America.
This is a comprehensive and enjoyable look at the life and career of Yogi Berra.
- TGC Editorial Staff: Books We Enjoyed in 2024. Andrew Spencer shares the favorite books of 2024 from The Gospel Coalition Editorial Staff.
- Examining Church Hurt. Katie Ribera writes “In her newest book, When the Church Harm’s God’s People, Christian psychologist and trauma counselor Diane Langberg shows the serious nature of church hurt and the steps to take in addressing it.”
- Study, Savor and Share Scripture: Becoming What We Behold. My wife Tammy has published a book about HOW to study the Bible. The book is available on Amazon in both a Kindle and paperback edition. She writes “Maybe you have read the Bible but want to dig deeper and know God and know yourself better. Throughout the book I use the analogy of making a quilt to show how the Bible is telling one big story about what God is doing in the world through Christ. Quilting takes much patience and precision, just like studying the Bible, but the end result is well worth it.”
- Devotionals I Recommend for a New Year. Here are a number of excellent reading options recommended by Tim Challies.
- The Collected Best Books of 2024. Tim Challies writes “So while I scour as many lists as ever, it is rare for a single book to appear on more than a handful of them. With that in mind, here are the ones that appeared repeatedly and, in a more subjective sense, seemed to generate the most positive buzz throughout the year.”
- Bible Reading Plans for 2025. Nathan W. Bingham shares more than twenty Bible reading plans for 2025.
Won’t you read along with us?
We are reading through Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by R.C. Sproul. From the Ligonier description:
“The Westminster Confession of Faith is one of the most precise and comprehensive statements of biblical Christianity, and it is treasured by believers around the world. R.C. Sproul has called it one of the most important confessions of faith ever penned, and it has helped generations of Christians understand and defend what they believe.
In Truths We Confess, Dr. Sproul introduces readers to this remarkable confession, explaining its insights and applying them to modern life. In his signature easy-to-understand style and with his conviction that everyone’s a theologian, he provides valuable commentary that will serve churches and individual Christians as they strive to better understand the eternal truths of Scripture. As he walks through the confession line by line, Dr. Sproul shows how the doctrines of the Bible—from creation to covenant, sin to salvation—fit together to the glory of God. This accessible volume is designed to help you deepen your knowledge of God’s Word and answer the question, What do you believe?”
This week we look at the second half of WCF 23 Of the Civil Magistrate. Here are a few helpful quotes from this section of the chapter:
- The concept of vocation does not mean that every job is something that a Christian can, in good conscience, do.
- We have to be careful not to assume that any job we want is sanctioned by God.
- We have seen some incidents in recent years where the civil authorities have encroached on the church’s right to discipline by excommunication.
- Church government and church discipline were not invented by mean-spirited people but by Christ Himself for His church.
- Church leaders are not to interfere in civil matters, just as civil magistrates are not to interfere in the free exercise of religion.
- The principle is this: whenever any authority (civil magistrate, employer, father in the home, husband in the marriage) commands us to do what God clearly forbids or forbids us to do what God clearly commands, we not only may disobey but must disobey.
