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Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra (born May 12, 1925) is a former catcher and manager in Major League Baseball who played almost his entire career for the New York Yankees. He is 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.Born in an area of St. Louis called the Hill, Berra was originally nicknamed Lawdie, a bastardization of his name Lawrence. He picked up his nickname from a friend who said he resembled a Hindu holy man ( yogi). (The Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Yogi BearYogi Bear is a cartoon character (an upright bear) created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Yogi debuted in 1958 as a supporting character on the Huckleberry Hound show. He became very popular, and in 1961 was given his own show. Over the years he would appe was named after Berra.) He began playing baseball in local American Legion leagues, where he learned the basics of play as a catcher. After rejecting an offer from the St. Louis CardinalsThe St. Louis Cardinals was also the name of a National Football League team based in Saint Louis, Missouri, which moved and became the Phoenix Cardinals (now known as the Arizona Cardinals) in 1988. The St. Louis Cardinals are an American Major League Ba, he signed with the Yankees in 1942Events January January 1 World War II: The word " United Nations" is first officially used to describe the Allied pact. January 2 World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces. January 5 Amy Johnson disappears in flight over River Thames estuary ass. He is generally considered to be one of the best catchers in history. In two recent (2004) approaches by sabermetriciansSabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics. The term is derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research. It was coined by Bill James, who has been its most Berra is ranked first by the Bill JamesThis article is about Bill James, the writer about baseball and sabermetrics. For other individuals with the same name, see below. Bill James (born June 18, 1949 at Mayetta, Kansas) is an important and influential baseball writer, and is its most influent Win SharesBaseball statistics Win Shares is a book (BooksEnthsiast.com) about baseball written by Bill James, published by STATS, Inc. It takes a sabermetric approach to evaluating the contribution of individual players to their teams' overall performance, and focuses method and third by the Total Baseball Total Player RatingTotal player rating (TPR) is a metric for measuring the value of baseball players, and to enable players to be compared against each other even when they played for different teams, at different positions, and in different eras. It was developed by saberm method.
Berra is also quite famous for his tendency toward malapropismA malapropism (from French mal a propos "ill to purpose") is an incorrect usage of a word, usually with comic effect. The term comes from the name of Mrs Malaprop a character in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedy, The Rivals ( 1775), whose name was in tur and fracturing the English language in highly provocative, interesting ways; see Yogiisms.
1 Playing career
Following a spell in the US Navy during World War II, he played minor league baseball with the Newark Bears before being called up for 7 games in the major leagues in 1946. The following season he played 86 games for the Yankees, and he would play 100+ for each of the following 14 years. During his 19-year career as a Yankee the Bronx Bombers dominated baseball, appearing in 14 World Series and winning ten championships. Berra himself was a 15-time All-Star, and won the league's MVP award in 1951, 1954 and 1955). He also caught Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 Series , the only no-hitter ever thrown in postseason play.
In 1946, he wore uniform number 38 on the Yankees, switching to 35 the next year. In 1948 he changed to number 8, which was to be made famous as his number for the rest of his career on the Yankees and Mets. The number 8 was retired in 1972 by the Yankees, jointly honoring Berra and Bill Dickey, his predecessor as the Yankees' star catcher.
In 1972 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
