Yankees fans who want to enjoy a Double-A game on Friday night August 5 should head to TD Bank Ballpark. The Somerset Patriots hold Yogi Berra Day.
The first thousand fans receive a Yogi Berra Bobblehead.
Doors at 6:00 a.m. Around 6:40 a.m., a pre-game ceremony will bring together members of the Berra family, including his sons Dale and Larry and granddaughter Lindsay. The lobby will have Yogi Berra memorabilia. The night includes a scavenger hunt, and Berra’s Italian roots will also be celebrated with an Italian-American night.
That means one of her favorites, grilled ravioli, will be on the menu, along with grilled Premio rope sausage and Rita’s Italian gelato. It looks like a fun night.
National Italian American Foundation East Coast Gala
For a casual fan, Yogi Berra is a former guard ball player who said all those funny malapropisms. (See the list of his greatest quotes at the end of this article.)
For a true fan, he’s a Hall of Famer who had incredible stats. When he retired, he held the record for most plate appearances (8,359), hits (2,150), home runs (358), runs (1,175) and RBIs (1,430) by a receiver.
In 17 years, from 1946 to 1963 with the New York Yankees, he won 10 World Series championships. He was a three-time AL MVP. Was chosen for 18 All-Star Games. He then played for the Mets. Later still, he coached both teams, and as a coach saw both teams return to World Series appearances.
The list of his achievements proves that he was much smarter than you think. Yogi’s colorful verbal gaffes painted an unfair picture of one of the game’s true greats. But they were also so charming and so often funny that they only made him more legendary. Or maybe a bit of mythology too, as a few famous quotes are debated if he actually said them. Which led him to once say, “I never said most of the things I said.” A memorable quote on his memorable quotes.
Atlanta Braves vs. New York Mets
Sportswriters loved the guy. There were so many gems.
Such as …
“Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.”
“A nickel is no longer worth a penny.”
“You better cut the pizza into four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.”
“I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.”
“Never reply to an anonymous letter.”
“The future is not what it used to be.”
“Even Napoleon had his Watergate.”
“He hits both sides of home plate. He is amphibious.
Once, when streakers were on the ground and Yogi was asked whether they were naked men or naked women, he allegedly said, “I don’t know. They had bags over their heads.
“It’s like deja vu all over again.”
“You can observe a lot by just looking.”
“Nobody goes there these days, it’s too crowded.”
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
And one that was suddenly less funny and more poignant when Yogi Berra died in 2015, “Always go to other people’s funerals or they won’t come to yours.”
The opinions expressed in the above post are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.
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