Yogi Berra: the man behind baseball’s greatest catchphrases

Yogi Berra took a lot of ribbing for his looks when he joined the New York Yankees in the 1940s. The Pinstripes were the premier organization in Major League Baseball, and their new backstop was told he was too ugly to be a Yankee. Yet he went on to an extraordinary career in MLB, first as a player and then as a manager, making quirky, and often incisive, observations throughout, including “It ain’t over till it’s over” (although there is some doubt whether he ever uttered that phrase). A new documentary on Berra references this “Yogi-ism” in its title – It Ain’t Over, directed by Sean Mullin.

The film is a sweet tribute to Berra, who died at age 90 in 2015. It recently made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is also screening at the Nantucket Film Festival, which starts on 22 June. Berra’s granddaughter Lindsay Berra, who features in the film, praises her grandfather’s response to jokes from teammates about his appearance.

“He had the witty response, ‘I never saw anyone hit with his face,’” Lindsay Berra says. “I know he was really good at letting stuff roll off of his back.”

Yogi-isms have become part of American culture, with eight included in the most recent volume of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, more than any US president. Among them: “Slump? I ain’t in no slump. I just ain’t hitting.” As a pitchman for products from Yoo-Hoo to Aflac, he played upon this persona, befuddling the Aflac duck with statements like “and they give you cash, which is just as good as money.”

Panels in the film pair various Yogi-isms with sayings from other sages throughout history, from Confucius to Einstein. “If you come to a fork in the road, take it” accompanies Robert Frost’s observation, “Two roads diverged in a