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Yogi: The Life & Times of an American Original
ISBN: 978-1-57243-945-0
400 pages
6 x 9, Hardbound
pub date 03-2008
Archival photo inserts
For more information on Carlo DeVito and his new book Yogi: The Life & Times of an American Original, check out his blog.Starting out in the sandlots of St. Louis, a young baseball legend was born. The Yankees beloved Yogi Berra is perhaps the greatest catcher to ever play the game, and his life is depicted in a brand new book Yogi: The Life & Times of an American Original., by author Carol DeVito,
Yogi had a relentless attitude to make it as a professional baseball player despite the odds, and this remarkable biography tells the story behind the early years of Berra’s life, his time in the Navy, his personal and professional life off the field, and special moments from his time as a coach and a Yankee player, including:
>> his World Series games and selections to the All-Star Team
>> the nightclub fight that put one Yankee in jail and fined five others including Berra
>> his trip to Italy on behalf of Baseballs for Italy, where he met the Pope
>> the famously debated stealing of home base by Jackie Robinson in Game 1, 1955 World Series
>> his fight with Yankee owner that caused him to stay away from Yankee Stadium for 14 years
Berra’s celebrity grew instantly after winning the 1951 MVP. In the years to come Berra would go on to win two other MVP’s placing him in the same category as only three other players at the time. His life as a baseball player was extraordinary, and to the surprise of many, his professional life off the field proved to be successful as well. He continued to play for the Yankees until 1964 when he took over as a full-time coach.
Berra was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. In the words of former teammate Don Larson, Berra possessed three traits that made him the greatest catcher ever to play the game, his abilities as a power hitter and bad-ball hitter, to call a game, and to throw out base runners. From humble beginnings to an American icon, there’s only one Yogi, and this biography truly honors his legacy.
About the author:
Carlo DeVito is an author, writer, and publishing executive. He was a feature writer for Mirror magazine, and has also written cover stories for John Daly, Shaquille O’Neal, and the Dallas Cowboys. He resides with his wife and two sons in one of their two homes in Freehold, New Jersey or Ghent, New York.
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Midwest Book Review, Volume 7: Number 6 - June 2008
Former feature writer for "Mirror" magazine Carlo DeVito presents Yogi: The Life & Times of an American Original, a solid biography of one of America's most successful sportsmen. the celebrated Yankee baseball team member Lawrence Peter Berra, a.k.a. "Yogi". The son of Italian immigrants, Yogi overcame his short height and taunting from his teammates, opponents, and the media to earn a phenomenal three MVP awards, ten World Series championships, and an assortment of catching records. Yogi's career in baseball didn't end with his retirement; he went on to manage a team from league of the World Series. He encountered famous people ranging from DiMaggio to Hemingway and Sinatra, inspired an enduringly popular cartoon character (Yogi Bear), and even enriched the American lexicon with an assortment of malapropisms. A handful of black-and-white photographs enrich this down-to-earth chronicle of one of baseball's most beloved celebrities.
NSR REVIEWS: Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original
National Sports Review
by David Lister
Growing up I was a pretty big fan of Major League. It was goofy and about baseball, which seems to be a winning formula with me.
The characters are classic and the storyline is ridiculous but not too ridiculous. In fact, I really have only one complaint about the film.
When the Indians are playing the Yankees at the end of the movie and Cleveland brings in Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn to face the New York slugger that homered off him earlier in the movie/season, the dialogue between the slugger and Jake Taylor is incredibly disappointing. Something to the effect of “I guess we’ll go away from the fastball” and then of course Vaughn throws the fastball. That’s your psyche out? That’s lame.
Anyway, one of the highlights of Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original is the dialogue (and sometimes alleged dialogue) between the Hall-of-Fame catcher and fellow major leaguers of the golden era of baseball. Yes, some of the Berra stories and quotes were made up by others and by many accounts Berra could be a bit foul mouthed and surly at times, but it’s still entertaining.
One of author Carlo DeVito’s goals with this book is to separate what is fact and fiction when it comes to the legend of Yogi Berra. He does an admirable job in this, and it is clear by the end of the book that Berra isn’t exactly the silly guy you see in Afflack commercials.
Berra was born in St. Louis and the book begins by chronicling his childhood in the Midwest city, focusing quite a bit on his relationship with longtime friend and fellow ballplayer Joe Garagiola. A huge part of his early childhood was his refusal to go to high school, as well as his struggles with convincing his parents he could make a living playing baseball.
As the book goes on, DeVito discusses Berra being signed by the Yankees, his time in the Navy and his time in the minor leagues. By the time DeVito gets to Berra’s time with the big club, the book is as much about the New York media creating an image for Berra as it is about his accomplishments.
But as interesting as Berra’s playing career was, it has nothing on his coaching career. The former catcher spent more than 20 years coaching and managing, mostly for the Yankees and Mets. During this part of the book, Berra does not come off as an innocent quote-machine at all, but rather an underappreciated baseball man fighting for his baseball livelihood. It’s in here that DeVito excels at offering a different side of Yogi Berra.
The biography is not without its faults. The constant reminder of how Berra became one of the most wealthy Yankee’s of that generation comes off as apologetic for a (traditionally) uneducated man. Also, DeVito makes references to Berra’s temper and sometimes crudeness (he is a baseball player after all), but these incidences are sometimes glossed over.
But all in all Yogi: The Life and Times of an American Original is everything you could want out of a biography. It’s thorough, full of pictures of Berra at different stages of his life and just like the man – or at least the character created by the media – it’s very entertaining.
Baseball rules
April 6, 2008
By Larry Thornberry - Baseball is back. And not a minute too soon for the millions of fans of the Grand Old Game. Now mornings can begin as they were meant to begin, with coffee, toast (a bagel if you prefer) and box scores in the morning paper.
Triumph Books has brought out two volumes by two veteran sportswriters that make fine companions to the return of the national pastime.
"The Code" is a behind-the-scenes look that will help even veteran baseball viewers better understand the games they're watching, particularly those close pitches, hard slides at second, charging the mound, and catcher/runner collisions at home plate that sometimes lead to bench-clearing brawls. (OK, they're usually more shoving and shouting sessions than real brawls — players today make too much money to suffer a season-ending injury in a brawl — but occasionally someone does get his lights punched out). And "Yogi" is a pleasant trip through the life of one of the game's best players and most recognizable and revered characters, Yogi Berra.
Baseball may seen like a fairly civilized business compared to the gladiator sport that football is, or to the bar fight on skates that hockey often turns into before the final buzzer. But baseball today is played by big, strong (baseball players, like athletes in just about every other sport, have discovered the weight room and its benefits), tough, testosterone-besotted competitors. They enforce a code of conduct even as, increasingly, umpires try to stop them from doing so.
People who've never played baseball may be surprised to learn how big a role fear and intimidation play in the game. Most of this is due to the fact that the center of the game is a ball the approximate density of a rock that is thrown at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour near, and occasionally at, various of the batter's body parts.
No words can describe the pain of being hit with a 95-mph fastball, especially if it hits bone rather than meat. This kind of jolt can injure as well as hurt. In a few tragic instances, it has killed (only one major leaguer has died as a result of being hit by a pitch).
Baseball is our oldest game and the game most encrusted with tradition and honored rules of conduct, many of which aren't written down anywhere, certainly not in the official baseball rule book. The taunting and sometimes outrageous hot-dogging that goes on in football just isn't tolerated in baseball.
The player who stands at home plate too long admiring the ark of his home run, flips his bat contemptuously after going yard or takes too long to get around the bases after a home run is considered to be "showing up" the other team. He's an almost sure candidate to be dumped by the pitcher the next time he's at bat. Or perhaps in a future game if the offender doesn't bat again in the same game after his offense, or if the game situation at the next at bat doesn't allow for it. When it comes to code infractions baseball players have long memories, and they balance accounts.
Pitchers are also accountable under the code. Batters like to dig in close to the plate so they can reach and hammer pitches over the outer part of the plate while still being able to turn on inside pitches. To "keep them honest" pitchers will back batters up with close pitches, some of which wind up hitting batters. Some teams take offense when their players are dumped at the plate. And it's the job of the pitcher on the dumpee's team to balance accounts by dumping one of the other team's players.
If he does this too obviously he can be in trouble with the umpire, even ejected from they game. If he doesn't do this he is surely in trouble with his own manager and teammates. Like in other games, in baseball you cover your teammates' backs or you will answer to them.
There are explicit sub-sections of the baseball code that govern when and how runners can slide hard into second to break up a double play, and govern the ever-dangerous plays at the plate. There are rules on how and when the catcher can block the plate, how and when the runner can bowl over the catcher, and when he is obliged to slide past the catcher. Infractions of any of these rules require a pay-back.
There are other less prominent but still enforced codes having to do with things such as running up the score, bunting for a hit late in a game when the pitcher has a no-hitter going, and stealing or swinging out of your socks late in a blow-out. All of these items are subsumed under showing respect for the game and for the other team. Why young men making millions of dollars a year for playing a boys' game should be so exquisitely concerned about being "shown up" or embarrassed Mr. Bernstein notes as a conundrum, but makes no attempt to explain. He probably couldn't. The code in baseball is one of those things more easily described than explained.
Yogi, on the other hand, is no enigma. He's one of those one-name people who almost everyone, even those who don't follow baseball, recognizes at once. He was born to poor Italian immigrant parents in the "Dago Hill" section of St. Louis (later changed to "The Hill" to satisfy political correctness).
He survived the Great Depression and a loving but no-nonsense father who considered baseball a frivolous pastime to go on to become one of the best catchers and most feared clutch hitters the game has ever seen. He coached and managed (the Yankees and the Mets) into his seventies, and retired finally as one of the most popular men to every wear Yankee pinstripes. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Mr. DeVito doesn't break any new ground in his book, but he covers well, with about the right amount of detail and the right number of anecdotes, the basics of the well-lived life (which thankfully, goes on — at 82, Yogi is still with us) of an iconic American character. He separates Berra the cartoon creation of sports writers from Berra the baseball player, husband, father, savvy businessman, and good friend to many.
Young Americans, even young baseball fans, think of Mr. Berra, who last played in 1963, as a somewhat odd-looking, old pitchman for various products on TV, and the author of various mangled but funny sayings such as, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it," or, "Baseball is 90 percent mental, and the other half is physical." But baseball fans over 60 remember Yogi as an outstanding catcher and about the last man opposing pitchers wanted to see at the plate when the game was on the line.
Most of Yogi's 358 life-time homers seemed to come when it really mattered. His malapropisms were more than offset by his clutch hits, his deft calling of games, his toughness on plays at the plate, and his crackling, on-the mark throws to nab larcenous base runners. Laugh all you want at the Yogisms; this guy was a ball player.
Yogi's story is also baseball's and America's story, from the Depression years when young "Lawdie" Berra was playing sandlot ball with his pal-for-life, Joe Garagiola, to the post-everything years of drugs and steroids and preposterous player salaries. Yogi's career crosses paths with the game's greats. He was teammates with such as Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Whitey Ford, and Mickey Mantle. His personal coach who helped him hone his catching skills was Hall of Fame Yankee catcher Bill Dickey, teammate of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. In 1985, his final year managing the Yankees, Yogi's team included Don Mattingly, Dave Winfield, Lou Piniella, and Ken Griffey Sr.
That's a lot of baseball, American and Berra history. Mr. DeVito captures much of this. And Yogi Berra, to paraphrase one of Yogi's famous fractured sayings, was the guy who made it all necessary.
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