Overview

Yogi Berra is one of the most popular former athletes in American history, and the most quoted American since Abraham Lincoln. Part comedian, part feisty competitor, Berra is also the winningest player (fourteen pennants, ten World Series, three MVPs) in baseball history. In this revelatory biography, Allen Barra presents Yogi's remarkable life as never seen before, from his childhood in ""Dago Hill,"" the Italian-American neighborhood in St. Louis, to his leading role on the 1949-53 Yankees, the only team to win five consecutive World Series, to the travails of the '64 pennant race, through his epic battles and final peace with George Steinbrenner. This biography, replete with nearly one hundred photos and countless ""Yogi-isms,"" offers hilarious insights into many of baseball's greatest moments. From calling Don Larsen's perfect game to managing the 1973 ""You Gotta Believe"" New York Mets, Yogi's life and career are a virtual cutaway view of our national pastime in the twentieth century.

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9780393062335

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Reviews

What a felicitous match, Barra on Berra. One of America s most insightful and precise sports writers artfully separates the myth from the reality of the iconic Yogi. Count me among the Yankee haters who devoured this book.--David Maraniss, author of Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

It has fallen to Allen Barra, one of the most erudite sportswriters in America...to tell the Yogi story in all its glory and nuance. In Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee, he walks the reader through contract squabbles, spring training, confrontations with the Red Sox, World Series victories and the sportswriters' exaggerations that created the Yogi myth. -- David M. Shribman

Starred Review. A full-scale biography of the most quoted and, possibly, the most underrated player in baseball history... A superior sports book bound to interest more than just die-hard fans, ranking with classics like Robert Creamer's Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (1974) and Richard Ben Cramer's Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life (2000). What a felicitous match, Barra on Berra. One of America's most insightful and precise sports writers artfully separates the myth from the reality of the iconic Yogi. Count me among the Yankee haters who devoured this book. -- David Maraniss, author of Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero Although Barra includes lots of play-by-play action in his book, he shows enough skill as a writer to prevent his book from becoming one big box score recast as simple declarative sentences. His game action stresses context and the development of Yogi as both a batter and a receiver. -- Harry Levins It has fallen to Allen Barra, one of the most erudite sportswriters in America...to tell the Yogi story in all its glory and nuance. In Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee, he walks the reader through contract squabbles, spring training, confrontations with the Red Sox, World Series victories and the sportswriters' exaggerations that created the Yogi myth. -- David M. Shribman

Author Information

Allen Barra is a sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the best-selling author of The Last Coach, Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee and Rickwood Field. His writing appears in the Washington Post, Salon, Playboy, and The Daily Beast. He lives in New Jersey.

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