My Favorite Yogi Berrisms

I think one of my true enjoyments growing up was watching,  playing and reading about baseball.  True, on the surface, baseball seems like a boring and slow sport with little spectator value but often I have likened it to chess because of the intricacies and complexities that are not immediately apparent but what makes the game so interesting and for me, exhilarating.  I probably enjoy the history of baseball just as much as the enjoyment of the game itself and it is out of that knowledge, I have appreciated over the years one of the true Yankee greats, Yogi Berra, who played on the great Yankee teams of the 40’s and 50’s with such towering figures as Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.  In recent years, however, he has been notable for his Yogisms that perhaps you have heard from time to time and I have personally found delight in.  So here are a list of my favorites from quotes he actually made.  Enjoy!

“It’s like déjà vu all over again”.

“When you get to a fork in the road, take it”

“I didn’t really say everything I said”

“Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded.”

“We have a good time together, even when we’re not together”

“It was hard to have a conversation with anyone; there were so many people talking”.

“We make too many wrong mistakes”

“You can observe a lot by watching”

“It gets late early around here…”

“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore”

“If I didn’t wake up I’d still be sleeping”

“I usually take a two hour nap from 1 to 4″

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else”

“The future ain’t what it used to be”

“If they don’t want to come, you can’t stop them”

“Always go to other people’s funerals otherwise they won’t go to yours”

“You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn’t enough, in the second half, you have to give what is left.”

“Never answer an anonymous letter”

“Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel!”

“Ninety percent of this game is half mental.”

When he was asked if first baseman Don Mattingly had exceeded expectations, Yogi said “I’d say he’s done more than that!”

At a dinner in an Italian restaurant, he was asked how many slices should be cut in his pizza, and he replied “You better make it four, I don’t think I could eat eight”