Sad to hear of Yogi Berra's death, although I admit that I have never gone to the Yogi Berra Museum, despite its being just 12 miles past the Lincoln Tunnel.
The great quotes, many of which I gather he actually did say, are truly a cultural resource. Despite their over-familiarity, I couldn't resist opening my international tax book with one of them ("When you come to a fork in the road, take it"), and closing it with another ("It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future"). But my favorite is probably the justly famous restaurant quote ("Nobody goes there any more; it's too crowded"),
I'm old enough to remember Berra's baseball days, albeit just as a manager, not a player. I faintly remember the infamous Phil Linz harmonica incident while he was managing the 1964 Yankees, but he also was on hand for the Mets' dizzying charge to the 1973 World Series. (Ed Kranepool once said, at a Mets fan club gathering I attended, that the Mets would have held on to defeat the Athletics had Yogi stuck with his initial plan to pitch George Stone in Game 6, and give the tired Tom Seaver an extra day of rest for Game 7 if needed, but who knows.) I suppose his Mets connection made it easier for me to regard him as an actually benign part of what I otherwise (fairly or not) deem the toxic waste dump of Yankees history.
Thirty-five Yogi quotes are available here, and there are plenty more here.
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