Catcher In The Wry

“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” – Yogi Berra

They used to say that rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel. It’s a good thing that Yogi and the boys didn’t play in the modern era. They’d have been outsourced to India.

Rest in peace, Mr. Berra.  There won’t be another like you.

Before Yankees career, Navy gunner Yogi Berra was part of D-Day invasion

Seaman Second Class Lawrence P. Berra was on a rocket boat stationed off the coast of Normandy on June 6, 1944, barely three weeks after his 19th birthday. He and the other six men in the 36-foot craft provided fire support for the invasion that came to be known simply as D-Day and remained in the area for nearly two weeks after the initial landings.

“We were told to shoot anything that moved,” Berra told author Gary Bloomfield in “Duty, Honor, Victory: America’s Athletes in World War II.”  “I am not sure if he said ‘moved’ or ‘any plane below the clouds,’ but we all shot at the first plane below the clouds and we shot down one of our own planes. The pilot was mad as hell, and you could hear him swearing as he floated down in his parachute. I remember him shaking his fist and yelling, ‘If you bastards would shoot down as many of them as us the goddamn war would be over.'”

Related stories:

• Yogi at war: Before pinstripes, Berra donned Navy blue
• The 50 greatest Yogi Berra quotes
• Yogi Berra – Statistics and History

PTG