Part of my real job – not an insignificant part – is to go out and meet with people.
About what, specifically, is unimportant. But what is important is that I have a quiver of off-the-shelf small talk arrows strapped to my back that I can pull out and fire on target pending a brief reading of the room.
Maybe I see some sports memorabilia in your office – perfect – I watched SportsCenter last night. Books stacked on books? That creative writing minor is finally going to pay off. Apple products only on the desk? My brother. My sister.
Over the years, I’ve become pretty OK at starting a conversation. Not the best; certainly not the worst.
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I didn’t know what it was, exactly.
It was for sure glass. And it was for sure a centerpiece of this man’s desk. But it kind of looked cloudy in the middle. Like a little dust storm. So when it came time for me to open my mouth I asked – what is that?
A piece of art that a friend of his had made. And inside, sand.
Sand he took from the beaches of Normandy in 1944.
The man had participated in D-Day and now was sitting behind a desk asking me questions about the internet. I’m sure I answered. But during that meeting I lost focus on the task at hand and instead allowed myself to be completely subsumed by his stories.
This man had seen the worst of the worst. Lost friends. Gained new ones. Changed the world.
70+ years later, he is unquestionably a huge success in business and still working. Grinding out meetings with a schlub like me because, well, it’s what he wants
He can do what he wants because he decided long ago that he was going to get what wants.
The epitome of the American Dream.
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Yogi Berra was born on The Hill to 1st generation immigrants in 1925. He passed away yesterday at the age of 90, 69 years to the day of his MLB debut.
In between, he led a LIFE.
- A member of the US Navy, Berra served as a gunner’s mate on the USS Bayfield during the D-Day invasion of France.
- 18x MLB All-Star, 13x World Series Champion, 3x AL MVP, MLB HOF (1972), MLB All-Century Team.
- Manged both the New York Yankees and New York Mets.
- Namesake of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center on Montclair State University’s campus.
- Bowling alley proprietor (with former teammate Phil Rizzuto)
- Sliver Buffalo award winner from the Boy Scouts of America.
- Portrayed in the 2013 Broadway play ‘Bronx Bombers’.
Doing it all with a smile on his face and (probably) a Yogi-ism at the ready. He was the pride of St. Louis and the unofficial mascot of New York. A man who stood only 5’7″ but cast a shadow longer than Robert Wadlow.
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For Cardinals fans, Berra is one of the all-time greats that they could have, should have, signed. If not for former team president Branch Rickey’s ‘planning’.
From Wikipedia:
In 1942, the St. Louis Cardinals spurned Berra in favor of his boyhood best friend, Joe Garagiola. On the surface, the Cardinals seemed to think Garagiola the superior prospect—but team president Branch Rickey actually had an ulterior motive: knowing he was soon to leave St. Louis to take over the operation of the Brooklyn Dodgers and more impressed with Berra than he let on, Rickey apparently planned to hold Berra off until he could sign him for the Dodgers. However, the Yankees signed Berra for the same $500 bonus the Cardinals offered Garagiola, before Rickey could sign Berra to the Dodgers.
The next line after that graph was how he was assigned to the Norfolk Tars of the Class B Piedmont League where he drove in 23 (!) runs in a double header.
Mr. Garagiola was a fine broadcaster, but a light hitter for the Birds.
Yogi? A Cardinal? What could have been.
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You’ll read a ton of tributes to Mr. Berra today.
- NY Times
- USA Today
- NY Daily News
- STL Post-Dispatch
- Player’s Tribune
- 101 ESPN (Bernie)
- New Yorker (Roger Angell)
Each one remembering something about Berra that is bound to be more incredible than the last thing remembered about Berra.
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RIP, Yogi.
You were from a different generation. One that thought that anything was possible and then did everything you could to prove how right you were.
Photo: NY Post
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