Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American
Speaker 1: people who would surprise. Winning columnist George Will has written
Speaker 1: extensively about baseball and has said this about America's attraction
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: Sports serves society by providing vivid examples of excellence. One
Speaker 1: of those examples is New York Yankee catcher and cultural
Speaker 1: icon Yogi Bearra. Here's George Will high drive, that's cuddled
Speaker 1: and Yogi Da.
Speaker 2: Don't run high over the train and end up at
Speaker 2: that avenue.
Speaker 1: It ain't over it until it's over. Ninety per cent
Speaker 1: of his name is half a metal.
Speaker 2: When you come to the fork in the world, take it.
Speaker 2: It's days have roll all over again.
Speaker 1: And the yanke is you pampas and look at thero
Speaker 1: take you back ritting Popkadella.
Speaker 2: The eighteen year old US Navy in listee, thinking it
Speaker 2: sounded less boring than the dull training he was doing
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty four, volunteered for service on what he
Speaker 2: thought an officer had called rocket ships. Actually they were small, slow,
Speaker 2: vulnerable boats used as launching pads for rockets to give
Speaker 2: close in support for troops assaulting beaches. The service on
Speaker 2: those boats certainly was not boring. At dawn on June sixth,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty four, that sailor was a few hundred yards
Speaker 2: off Omaha Beach. Lawrence Peter Barrot, who died at ninety,
Speaker 2: had a knack for being where the action was because
Speaker 2: he stood. When he stood. As a catcher, he spent
Speaker 2: a lot of time crouching at baseball's most physically and
Speaker 2: mentally demanding position five foot seven inches. He confirmed the
Speaker 2: axiom that the beauty of baseball is that a player
Speaker 2: does not need to be seven feet tall or seven
Speaker 2: feet wide. Beah's ways, and that one's been a legal ballpark. Well,
Speaker 2: what do you know, Larry beara the bollum Yogi his
Speaker 2: very first time at the play in the major leagues
Speaker 2: against the A's, and what does he do?
Speaker 1: He hits the home run.
Speaker 2: The shortstop during Yogi's first Yankee years was an even
Speaker 2: smaller Italian American one hundred and fifty pound Phil Risuto,
Speaker 2: listed at a generous five feet six Yogi had as
Speaker 2: sportswriter Alan Barraw says in his book Yogi Barra Eternal Yankee,
Speaker 2: The Winningness Career in the history of American sports. He
Speaker 2: played on Yankee teams that went to the World Series
Speaker 2: fourteen times in seventeen years. He won ten World Series rings.
Speaker 2: No other player is more than nine. He won three
Speaker 2: MVP Awards. Only Barry Bonds has more, with seven, but
Speaker 2: four of them probably painted by performance enhancing drugs. In
Speaker 2: seven consecutive seasons nineteen fifty through nineteen fifty six, Yogi
Speaker 2: finished in the top four in MVP voting. Only Bill
Speaker 2: Russell of the Boston Celtics eleven NBA Championships, FIVEP Awards
Speaker 2: and Henri Richard of the Montreal Hockey Team eleven NHL
Speaker 2: Championships have records of winning that exceed Yogis. He grew
Speaker 2: up in what he and others called the Dago Hill
Speaker 2: section of Saint Louis. When the Italian Americans who lived
Speaker 2: there did not take offense at the name, they had
Speaker 2: bigger problems. Biographer Alan Barrow notes that in an eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety five advertisement seeking labor to build a New York reservoir,
Speaker 2: the ad said whites would be paid a dollar thirty
Speaker 2: to a dollar fifty a day, colored workers a dollar
Speaker 2: twenty five to a dollar forty, and a Batalians a
Speaker 2: dollar fifteen to a dollar twenty five. The term wop
Speaker 2: may have begun as an acronym for the phrase without papers,
Speaker 2: as many Italians were when they arrived at Alas Island.
Speaker 2: American sports and ethnicity have been interestingly entangled. The name
Speaker 2: fighting Irish was originally a disparagement by opponents of Notre Dame,
Speaker 2: which for many years had problems filling its football schedule
Speaker 2: because of anti Catholic bigotry, but sports also have been
Speaker 2: stolvents of a sense of a partness felt by ethnic groups.
Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty three, the Sporting News, which for many
Speaker 2: decades was described as the Bible of baseball, except by
Speaker 2: baseball fans, who described the Bible as the sporting News
Speaker 2: of religion, called the national pastime the essence of the nation. Quote.
Speaker 2: In a democratic, Catholic, real American game like baseball, there
Speaker 2: has been no distinction raised except tacit understanding that a
Speaker 2: player of Ethiopian descent is ineligible the Mick, the Sheeni,
Speaker 2: the Wop, the Dutch and the Chink, the Cuban, the Indian,
Speaker 2: the Jap or the so called land glowed Saxon. His
Speaker 2: nationality is never a matter of moment, if he can
Speaker 2: pitch hitterfield ah diversity. In nineteen oh eight, The Sporting
Speaker 2: News said this about a Giant's rookie Charlie buck Herzog quote,
Speaker 2: the long nosed routers are crazy. Whenever young Herzog does
Speaker 2: anything noteworthy, cries of Herzog, Hertzog, good boy, Hertzog go
Speaker 2: up regularly, and there would be no let up even
Speaker 2: if a million ham sandwiches suddenly fell among these believers
Speaker 2: in percentages and bargains. David Morana sent his biography of
Speaker 2: Pirates the Pirates Roberto Clemente, the first Puerto Rican superstar,
Speaker 2: notes that as late as nineteen seventy one, Clementi's seventeenth
Speaker 2: season one sportswriter still quoted him in phonetic English quote,
Speaker 2: if I have my good armed fee ball, gainst their
Speaker 2: a lethal quicker. In nineteen sixty two, Alvin Dark, manager
Speaker 2: of the San Francisco Giants, banned the speaking of Spanish
Speaker 2: in the clubhouse. Today, with three of the most common
Speaker 2: surnames in baseball being Martinez, Rodriguez, and Gonzales, some managers
Speaker 2: speak Spanish. Yogi's great contemporary, the Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella,
Speaker 2: another three time MVP, was the son of an African
Speaker 2: American mother and Italian American father. With two Italian Americans
Speaker 2: on the Supreme Court, it is difficult to imagine how
Speaker 2: delighted Italian Americans were with their first national celebrity, the
Speaker 2: elegant center fielder on baseball's most glamorous team, Joe DiMaggio,
Speaker 2: the son of a San Francisco fisherman. Demaggio was Big
Speaker 2: Dago to his teammates, Yogi was Little Dago came the
Speaker 2: nation's most beloved sports figure. As Yogi said when Catholic
Speaker 2: Dublin elected a Jewish mayor, only in America.
Speaker 1: And a great job on the production, editing and storytelling
Speaker 1: by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Speaker 1: George Will for sharing the story of Yogi Bearra indeed
Speaker 1: only in America, Yogi Berra's story here on our American Stories.
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories. Every
Speaker 1: day we set out to tell the stories of Americans
Speaker 1: past and present, from small towns to big cities, and
Speaker 1: from all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But we
Speaker 1: truly can't do this show without you. Our shows are
Speaker 1: free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
Speaker 1: If you love what you hear, go to our American
Speaker 1: Stories dot com and make a donation to keep the
Speaker 1: stories coming. That's our American Stories dot com.