Day 16: 30 baseball books in 30 days of April
The book: "Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original"
The author: Carlo DeVito
How to find it: Triumph Book, 432 pages, $25.95.
Where we'd go looking for it: Partial to Powell's online book store. There's also the author's site about all that is about his book at www.yogino8.blogspot.com
The scoop: After all those books on Yankee Stadium, how about the stadium's most original employee?
DeVito (now there's a New York name for you) wants to debunk (now there's a New York phrase for you) all the myths about the Great No. 8.
OK, but this really happened: On the card he gave his wife for their 20th anniversary, he signed it: "Love, Yogi Berra."
"Berra is a prisoner of his own fame and his legacy is a victim of it as well," writes DeVito. Let's cut through all the tall tales and see someone who is "genuinely one of the greatest players ever to pick up a bat and ball.... And no matter how humorous his remarks are, his accomplishments were hard-earned and fairly won."
So the man who won three MVPs and was a part of 21 World Series (14 as a player) has another side we don't know of? He's been misunderstood? Maybe it's because ...
(Wait, I'll get back to that thought after I see Yogi in this Aflac commercial again, the one with the duck... hilarious).
Before reading this, maybe you should also find Berra's autobiography, from 1998: "The Yogi Book: I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said!", or his followup in 2003: "What Time Is It? You Mean Now?: Advice for Life from the Zennest Master of Them All". Or this, from 2001: "When You Come to a Fork In the Road, Take It: Inspiration and Wisdom from one of Baseball's Greatest Heroes"
Need we go on? So where does the perception of him being the Norm Crosby of Squatting come from?
Definitely, don't confuse this book with "Autobiography of a Yogi," by Paramahansa Yogananda. That would be a mistake.
One that Berra probably has even made himself.
How it goes down in the scorebook: Catcher's non-interference
Coming soon: Allen Barra's book, "Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee"
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