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The 50 greatest Yogi Berra quotes
Yankees legend Yogi Berra passed away on Tuesday at the age of 90. An 18-time
All-Star, Berra appeared in 14 World Series as a member of the Yankees and won
10 of them.
Berra’s contributions to MLB history are incalculable, but his
legacy might be even better remembered for what he contributed to American
language. A sportswriters’ favorite, Berra had countless expressions and turns
of phrase that were memorable because most of them didn’t make any sense. (At
the same time, every one had some truth to it.)
Berra-isms (colloquial
expressions that lack logic) are now countless, and many of them are just
attributed to Berra, even if he never actually said them. As he so perfectly
put it: “I never said most of the things I said.” Here are 50 of our favorites.
1. When you come to a fork in
the road, take it.
2. You can observe a lot by
just watching.
3. It ain’t over till it’s
over.
4. It’s like déjà vu all over
again.
5. No one goes there nowadays,
it’s too crowded.
6. Baseball is ninety percent
mental and the other half is physical.
7. A nickel ain’t worth a
dime anymore.
8. Always go to other
people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
9. We made too many wrong
mistakes.
10. Congratulations. I knew
the record would stand until it was broken.
11. You better cut the pizza
in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.
12. You wouldn’t have won if
we’d beaten you.
13. I usually take a two-hour
nap from one to four.
14. Never answer an anonymous
letter.
15. Slump? I ain’t in no
slump… I just ain’t hitting.
16. How can you think and hit
at the same time?
17. The future ain’t what it
used to be.
18. I tell the kids,
somebody’s gotta win, somebody’s gotta lose. Just don’t fight about it. Just
try to get better.
19. It gets late early out
here.
20. If the people don’t want
to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.
21. We have deep depth.
22. Pair up in threes.
23. Why buy good luggage, you
only use it when you travel.
24. You’ve got to be very
careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.
25. All pitchers are liars or
crybabies.
26. Even Napoleon had his
Watergate.
27. Bill Dickey is learning
me his experience.
28. He hits from both sides
of the plate. He’s amphibious.
29. It was impossible to get
a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.
30. I can see how he (Sandy
Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.
31. I don’t know (if they
were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over
their heads.
32. I’m a lucky guy and I’m
happy to be with the Yankees. And I want to thank everyone for making this
night necessary.
33. I’m not going to buy my kids
an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.
34. In baseball, you don’t
know nothing.
35. I never blame myself when
I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After
all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at
myself?
36. I never said most of the
things I said.
37. It ain’t the heat, it’s
the humility.
38. If you ask me anything I
don’t know, I’m not going to answer.
39. I wish everybody had the
drive he (Joe DiMaggio) had. He never did anything wrong on the field. I’d
never seen him dive for a ball, everything was a chest-high catch, and he never
walked off the field.
40. So I’m ugly. I never saw
anyone hit with his face.
41. Take it with a grin of
salt.
42. (On the 1973 Mets) We
were overwhelming underdogs.
43. The towels were so thick
there I could hardly close my suitcase.
44. Little League baseball is
a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.
45. Mickey Mantle was a very
good golfer, but we weren’t allowed to play golf during the season; only at
spring training.
46. You don’t have to swing
hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it’ll go.
47. I’m lucky. Usually you’re
dead to get your own museum, but I’m still alive to see mine.
48. If I didn’t make it in
baseball, I won’t have made it workin’. I didn’t like to work.
49. If the world were
perfect, it wouldn’t be.
50. A lot of guys go, ‘Hey,
Yog, say a Yogi-ism.’ I tell ’em, ‘I don’t know any.’ They want me to make one
up. I don’t make ’em up. I don’t even know when I say it. They’re the truth.
And it is the truth. I don’t know.
See also:
"Yogi Berra Turned Linguistic
Vice Into Virtue With His Cockeyed Tautologies"
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