Farewell to Yogi Berra, a man of the people

Joe DiMaggio, the regal center fielder of the New York Yankees, was immortalized in song by Paul Simon. When DiMaggio died in 1999, Simon explained his admiration for a legendary athlete that chose to reject his celebrity rather than exploit it.

“We grieve for Joe DiMaggio,” Simon wrote in the New York Times, “and mourn the loss of his grace and dignity, his fierce sense of privacy, his fidelity to the memory of his wife and the power of his silence.”

We grieve today for Yogi Berra, another legendary Yankee. He was not a man that stood above the people. He was a man of the people, and enormously proud of it.

Yogi Berra’s Most Memorable Quotes

DiMaggio and Berra were sons of Italian immigrants who grew up to become champions on America’s most famous sports team, and to serve their country in World War II.

But DiMaggio was as accessible as a president on Mt. Rushmore.

Berra was the guy that inspired a cartoon character – Yogi Bear, of course – perhaps best known for trying to steal picnic baskets from unsuspecting campers.

There was nothing regal in Berra’s manner. He was the guy with an everyman grudge, the one who demanded his old boss apologize for firing him. He held out for 14 years, refusing to set foot in Yankee Stadium, and finally George Steinbrenner apologized.

Berra did not just lend his name to a museum. He showed up, to meet the people.

Berra would be the guy you would want to invite over for dinner, if only to hear what he might say.

“Nobody goes there anymore,” he once said about a popular restaurant. “It’s too crowded.”

Or, as he once said in expressing his gratitude for an award: “Thank you for making this day necessary.”

He insisted his library of delightful sayings was completely unintentional.

“I don’t think them up,” he once told the Rochester Business Journal. “Really, I don’t. They just pop out. My mouth runs before my brain is ready to walk.”

Berra won a record 10 World Series championship rings, and so it is unfortunate that this generation might remember the Hall of Fame catcher best for his witticisms, most recently in a commercial in which he proclaimed, “They give you cash, which is just as good as money.”

As he turned 90 in May – 50 years after his final game – more than 100,000 supporters petitioned the White House, asking that President Obama award Berra the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In its response, the White House noted that the president himself would have to make the call on Berra.

“He’s demonstrated many of the qualities of past Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients,” the White House response concluded, “so -- as he might say -- it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

Today, sadly, his life is over.