Before Berra, who died Tuesday of natural causes at age 90 in his New Jersey home, became a linchpin in the New York Yankee legacy, he left the baseball diamond to serve in the Navy during World War II. It was his first choice, but not by much.
"I almost joined the Army after I had enlisted in the Navy," Berra said during a 2010 event at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., as part of a veterans conference. "The Army would have allowed me to spend a couple of weeks back home before I shipped out. But, off I went to the Navy."
He headed to Europe aboard the Buckley, a Coast Guard attack transport: Both the ship and the ballplayer had been pressed into naval service in the lead-up to the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France.
Berra, apparently, was scolded for playing out of position.
"I kept coming up top to look around, and they kept telling me to get back down there or I'd get hit," he said at the 2010 event. "I just wanted to see what was going on. I liked it more up there!"
A 1950s-era Treasury Department poster used Yogi Berra's likeness to promote the purchase of savings bonds
Photo Credit: National Archives
His play "impressed Giants manager Mel Ott so much that he called the Yankees and offered $50,000 for Berra," according to the SABR book. Yankee president Larry MacPhail said no, but admitted later, according to the book, that he didn't know who Berra was.
Berra wouldn't be playing in anonymity for long. He was in the majors with the Yankees at the tail end of the 1946 season, earned his first of 10 World Series rings as a Yankee player in 1947, and was voted into his first All-Star Game in 1948. He played in his last in 1962, 10 years before his induction into the Hall of Fame.
Generations of baseball fans would know Berra not for his on-field successes, but for his enduring place at or near the top of history's most quotable athletes. The military is no exception:
- An Army Training and Doctrine Command presentation on "Adapting the Army for 2020" reminds its viewers that according to Berra, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
- A piece from a Defense Department Modeling and Simulation Coordination publication tells readers that, as Berra put it, "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is."
- A 2014 publication from Marine Corps University, discussing the mission in Afghanistan, brings out an appropriate classic: "It ain't over till it's over."
Honoring a legend
When the team behind the Bob Feller Act of Valor Award began preparations for its inaugural offering in 2013, at least one of the group's early steps was an easy one to make.
Bob Feller Act of Valor Award creator and president Peter Fertig presents the inaugural award to Yogi Berra in 2013.
Photo Credit: ActOfValorAward.org
Berra received the honor, named for another Hall of Famer noted for his wartime naval service, that October at his museum in Montclair, New Jersey. Berra's D-Day service was honored last June at the museum in an event marking the battle's 70th anniversary.
He sat next to Tommy Lasorda, an Army veteran and fellow Act of Valor Award honoree. Neither of the ever-quotable baseball legends spoke at the ceremony.
"He was a humble person," Fertig said of Berra. "He was a warm, caring human being who served at a very delicate time in our nation's history. And he was an instrumental part of it, being at D-Day."
Kevin Lilley is the features editor of Military Times.
