Song for Yogi Berra – High Time
"Nobody Don't Like Yogi" plans to stay at the Actors' Summit Theater through January. It figures to be good enough for its site. So, why not Bay / Westlake soon? We're no less cerebral. The real-life Lawrence Peter Berra had something besides baseball stardom. And he still has. What? As Brit theatergoers would colorfully pronounce it, it's "clahss."
Ah, Yogi Berra was in the news the other day. At least in Maureen Dowd's column briefly.
Was in the fast political company of Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, and probably some men. At the World Serious. Apropos – he a li'l ol' Baseball Hall of Famer.
The man has long been a true poet of paradox. But an uncrowned laureate. And why not a super-paradoxer? He was a great bad-ball hitter in his day job, too.
Years ago, talented columnist Bill Corum did an apparently deliberately mediocre writ in this spirit, but sans my parenthetical angles and with quite a grenade at the end – something many of us knew but had submerged. I don't have the text or remember anything verbatim. Only the spirit and probably the last few exact words. Later.
"It gets late early." Lad from The Hill in St. Louie played left field late in his long New York career at the then-Yankee Stadium. And the shadows fell sooner there. It must have been the east, and the games lingered long after noon.
"It ain't over till the fat lady sings." (How likely is it that an unlettered clown knows about opera?)
And he wore brown shoes with a blue suit once. (Show me the man who has never been gauche. And why would a slob wear a suit anyway?)
"It's deja vu all over again." (Grade-school dropout – albeit to feed siblings – knows an internationally prestigious lingo?)
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it... A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore... Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't come to yours... Baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical... Even Napoleon had his Watergate... If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be." (Thanks, Google, for these.)
On Corum went, and even lulled us with real trivia. Then he pulled that oh so ancient hidden-ball trick and slapped us with: "And he's just the best catcher in baseball."
Jerry Howell lives in Bay Village.