Posts Tagged → quotes
Steve Jobs, “Computers are like a bicycle for our minds.”
Yogi Berra
Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra (born May 12, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a former Major League Baseball player and manager. He played almost his entire career for the New York Yankees and was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. Arguably the most beloved baseball player since Babe Ruth, Berra was one of only four players to be named the Most Valuable Player of the American League three times, and one of only six managers to lead both American and National League teams to the World Series.
Berra, who quit school in the eighth grade, has a tendency toward malapropism and fracturing the English language in highly provocative, interesting ways. Simultaneously denying and confirming his reputation, Berra once stated, “I didn’t really say everything I said.”
He picked up his famous nickname from a friend, Bobby Hofman, who said he resembled a Hindu holy man (yogi) they had seen in a movie, whenever Berra sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat, or while looking sad after a losing game.Years later, the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Yogi Bear was named after Berra, something Berra did not appreciate after he started being periodically addressed as “Yogi Bear.”
Some of the best Yogi-isms:
* As a general comment on baseball: “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.”
* On why he no longer went to a popular St. Louis restaurant: “Nobody goes there no more, it’s too crowded!”
* “It ain’t over till it’s over.” – After Berra’s 1973 Mets trailed the Chicago Cubs by 9½ games in the National League East; the Mets rallied to win the division title on the next-to-last day of the season.
* When giving directions to his New Jersey home, which was equally accessible via two different routes: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
* On being the guest of honor at an awards banquet: “I’d like to thank all those who made this night necessary.”
* “It’s like déjà vu all over again”. Berra explained that this quote originated when he time and again witnessed Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris hit back to back home runs in the Yankees’ seasons in the early 1960s.
* “You can observe a lot by just watching.”
* “It’s tough making predictions, especially about the future”
* “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
* On a trip to Cooperstown, to attend a dinner, Phil Rizzuto commented to Yogi, “I think we’re lost.” To which Yogi responded “Yeah, but we’re making great time.”
* When told by a queen visiting New York on a particularly humid day that he appeared “quite cool,” Yogi innocently responded “Thanks; you don’t look so hot yourself.”
* When asked if he wanted a personal pizza cut into 4 or 8 slices, Yogi responded with “Better cut it into 4, I don’t think I could eat 8.”
* “It’s not the heat, it’s the humility.”