Yogi Berra
By Rick Smith
When you get to a pro baseball game way early-hours before the first pitch is thrown you see batting practice and pepper and other warm-up exercises. Avid fans always go way early.
So when I was a young boy I was lucky that my folks included “way early” as part of our family outings to a ball game. Three sisters and I were there one Sunday in downtown Detroit, in old Briggs Stadium. My mom packed a lunch. We got our seats early, with lots of time to watch the warm-ups as the stadium filled-in.
This was no regular Sunday game. The Yankees were in town.
Our Tigers had star players of their own in Al Kaline and Rocky Colavito. But the Yankees coming to town always made a ball game extra fun. They had the biggest guns in Mickey Mantle and Roger Marris as well as household names at virtually every position. They ruled the World Series.
Sitting 40 rows back between home plate and third base, my sisters and I roamed the open rows of seats all around us. Other avid fans trickled in. I was watching the warm-ups from various angles within the boundaries our parents had set.
Gloves popped, bats rang-out with the crack of a hit ball, a casual easy-going mood seemed to rise up from the field and flow into all of us. I felt relaxed and happy. After a while we got signaled by our parents to return for lunch. Let the brown bags begin.
By now I’d seen most of the players warming-up in one way or another. I sat back and enjoyed my sandwich and potato chips gazing everywhere and branding the moment onto my heart.
Then I spotted someone new approaching home plate to take his turn at batting practice. “Oh, yeah,” I said to myself, “it’s Yogi Berra!” Between Mantle, Marris, Kaline, and Colivato I’d forgotten about Yogi. And Yogi was equally big to me. From a distance I knew it was him just by the way he stood and walked.
Yogi Berra Farewell
Springing up from my seat, sandwich in hand, I hustled down toward the field to my boundary. Above me, the stadium’s second deck extended out a bit farther so I was still in the shadows of cover.
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From there, in the loudest 11-year-old voice I could produce, I hollered “Hiiiiii Yogiiiii ! ! ! ! !” The stadium was still very empty and from my cavern-like location my little voice echoed all around as if amplified. It surprised me.
But what surprised me more was when I saw Yogi’s right arm come up. His timing was perfect. He was answering me with a wave …wasn’t he? Or was that a stretch? It could have been a stretch. No. It was a wave -to me. “I heard ‘ya, kid,” he said with his wave.
“Wow,” I said to myself.
I don’t remember who won the game that day.
But I’ve never forgotten that moment with Yogi.
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