Ninety Percent Mental

America has a “philosophical cause” as Abraham Lincoln said, but it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to be an American. No one proved this more winningly than the great American philosopher, Lorenzo Pietro Berra. His authentic Italian name got Americanized to Lawrence Peter, but he became known to the world as Yogi—Yogi Berra, the baseball legend. Yogi, 21 years old, made his major league debut with the New York Yankees on September 22, 1946. As a catcher for the Yankees, he won ten World Series championships, with 18 All-Star games, three Most Valuable Player Awards, 358 home runs and 1,430 runs batted in, which earned him a place in the Hall of Fame. After his playing career, he was one of a handful of managers to reach the World Series in both leagues. With baseball Providence, Yogi departed this world 69 years to the day after his major league debut, September 22, 2015.

But Lawrence Berra is best known for — Yogi-isms: advice, insights, observations, and pearls of wisdom that make the world a more interesting place to be spending time in. Some of his most well-known reflections are illuminations of the sport he excelled in and knew so much about. “Baseball,” as he said, “is 90 percent mental, and the other half is physical.” Why did the 1959 Yankees fail to win a 5th consecutive American League pennant? “We made too many wrong mistakes.” Playing afternoon games late in the season in old Yankee Stadium, the balcony overhanging left field cast a dark shadow, making it hard for the outfielder to track fly balls. As Yogi put it, “It gets late early out there.”

Watching Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hitting back-to-back home runs inspired Yogi with one of his best-known gems: “It’s deja vu all over again.” Defining a switch hitter: “He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.” On being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: “I guess the first thing I should do is thank everybody who made this day necessary.”

But his insight extended beyond baseball to life. On social etiquette: “Never answer an anonymous letter.” “Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours.” On the troubling problem of inflation: “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” On travel: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” And, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” On the weather: “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.” On unpopular popular places: “No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” On history and politics: “Even Napoleon had his Watergate.” On figuring out the world: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Or, the even better variant — “the future ain’t what it used to be.” On deep philosophy: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”

Yogi was a Big Leaguer and an American Leaguer, but he was no Ivy-Leaguer. He grew up the son of a brick yard laborer in a tough, poor Italian working-class neighborhood in St. Louis. When asked how he liked school as a boy, he said: “Closed.” He dropped out to work for his family; then, despite his parent’s wishes, he insisted on playing baseball. Along the way, as part of his real-world education, Seaman Second Class Berra served on a small landing craft missile boat, which attacked the coast of Normandy during the D-Day invasion of 1944.

Contrary to hearsay, Yogi didn’t get his nickname from the cartoon character Yogi Bear — if there is any connection, it was the other way around. Yogi became Yogi when a teammate saw a travelogue about India and noticed a Hindu yogi sitting cross-legged—just like Lawrence Berra sitting on the ground waiting for his turn at bat. So Lawrence became Yogi.

In June 1973, Yogi was managing the New York Mets, and they had fallen to last place, nine and a-half games out of first. As hard as it is, according to Yogi, to make predictions about the future, he made a kind of prediction that became his most famous aphorism: “It ain’t over til it’s over.” And, against all odds, the Mets went on to win the National League pennant.

In good humored self-defense, Yogi once remarked, “I never said most of the things I said.” But behind all the endearing malapropisms, Yogi was a very smart and successful businessman. Sports reporters overheard him seriously discussing the stock market with teammates. He held out for raises throughout his career and became one of the three highest-paid players in the majors. He was one of the first athletes to have a commercial agent, and his Yogi-isms helped him land lucrative commercial deals endorsing products, where, as Yogi put it, “they paid me in cash, which is almost as good as money.”

Yogi will always inspire admiration and affection because—like that other good-humored philosopher, Socrates—about the most important things, Yogi seemed to know at least 90% of what he didn’t know.