Gator

by Ron Guidry

  This is why the Yogi-isms are so comical. They were born out of this idea that Yogi was some kind of village idiot who mumbled and could barely form a sentence. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. During his prime, the Yankees pitchers wiggled their way through games despite not having a staff with particularly noteworthy or famous arms. (Whitey Ford didn’t come until midway through Yogi’s career.) The Yankees pitchers were always better with Yogi behind the plate. He knew exactly what pitch to call and where to set his glove. He knew when to call for the inside pitch to brush batters off. He squeezed every strike and every win out of his pitchers.

  When you’re able to do that, you really don’t care what people say about you or how you are depicted. Yogi, the humble man he was, almost never talked about himself. But during my years as a player and instructor, I got the chance to talk with guys like Whitey, Eddie Lopat, and Vic Raschi, who got to pitch to Yogi. It was clear to me that Whitey pitching to Yogi was like me pitching to Thurman. A good pitcher becomes a great one with an outstanding catcher behind the plate. Yogi was an outstanding catcher because he was the game’s ultimate thinker. Ironic, considering he was a guy people laughed at for the way he spoke. The fact was, he was smarter than everyone around him.

  Those are the qualities that led him to help win ten World Series, more than any other player in baseball history. He was the guy who was overlooked every step of the way. But he was so damn stubborn and had such passion that rejection only fueled him to greater heights. To me, that’s the start of what makes him such a revered figure. One minute, he would be thoughtfully breaking down opposing batters and deciding what pitches to call. The next moment he’d be chasing an umpire around the field because he refused to accept what he perceived to be an unfair call. It’s a side of Yogi, his sheer will and determination, that isn’t spoken of enough.

  When I was a young boy, racing home from school to catch the end of Yankees games on television, Yogi wasn’t front and center. I was born in 1950, and by the time I was really following the game, Yogi was past his prime. I more closely followed the careers of Mickey, Whitey, and Roger Maris. Yogi played his last season as a Yankee, and that was only sixty-four games, in 1963.

  Then, as I got older, I started to hear the stories about Yogi and the other Yankees greats. I’d read about some of the more famous old games and occasionally saw a replay of a famous moment. Then suddenly Yogi was my coach, his locker next to mine. And all the qualities he had as a player, he brought to us as a coach. He could be silly, walking around the clubhouse in his underwear, having a chew and making us laugh. He could be intense and insightful, explaining to me when I needed to throw some chin music, and how to attack batters. He covered the whole spectrum.

  The toughest thing to watch was his self-imposed exile after George fired him as a manager. As I explained earlier, he said he wouldn’t step in Yankee Stadium again so long as George owned the team. If anybody else said that, you’d shrug it off. But Yogi lived to be on the baseball field. He was born to walk on the grass; it was a shame for someone with such an in-depth knowledge of and love for the game to become so exiled from it. It was a shame for the Yankees organization to be out of touch with the guy who had won more World Series than anybody else in a Yankees uniform. Somebody who defined what it meant to be a Yankee—the gruff, working-class attitude that New Yorkers adored, the willingness to fight against any odds. Hollywood looks might not have won anything for him, but his determination did. And now, that same determination kept him away from the Yankees for nearly fifteen years.

  Between the stubbornness of Yogi and the stubbornness of Mr. Steinbrenner, the only surprising thing is that their cold war ever ended. But they both loved the same thing: the New York Yankees. That’s what led George to Yogi’s museum in New Jersey in 1999 to apologize in person. It’s the same feeling that led Yogi, a man who had vowed never to return to Yankee Stadium so long as George owned the team, to accept George’s apology. Together they made plans for a grand return, a Yogi Berra Day that July. Before the game, Don Larsen, the Yankees pitcher who threw the first perfect game in Yankees history, during the 1956 World Series with Yogi behind the plate, tossed the ceremonial first pitch to Yogi. A few hours later David Cone finished another perfect game, the third in the team’s history. As if we needed another sign that all was right in the world.

  The end of that feud meant something special to me. Yogi Berra would return to spring training. The man born to wear a Yankees uniform would be coming to Tampa (our facilities had moved from Fort Lauderdale by then) to be involved in the game and the team once again. I couldn’t wait. I loved every second spent around the guy. I didn’t know, however, just how close we’d become. For I became Yogi Berra’s chauffeur.

  It all happened very organically. I had told him after the reconciliation that if he came to spring training, I’d pick him up. And once you tell Yogi something, that’s how it goes. It started with scooping him up from the airport in my truck. From there, it slowly evolved. He had a simple rule: “Don’t be late, Gator.” I’d take him grocery shopping. I’d shuttle him to and from the hotel. We’d go out to dinner every night. Until we’d eat out so much that I’d insist on cooking up some frog legs or something because there are only so many damn times you can eat out. Although one of the benefits of going around town with Yogi Berra is that you rarely have to pay for your meals. More than you’d think, we’d ask for the check and the waiter would say it had been covered. What?

  “Mr. Guidry, Mr. Berra, you see that couple over there? Yogi smiled and waved at them earlier, and they were so appreciative they wanted to treat him to a meal.”

  When Reggie would see us together, he’d call me Yogi’s “guide dog.” Going around town with him was like traveling with the pope. We’d get out of the car somewhere, and cars would literally stop in the middle of the road so people could honk their horns or open their doors and wave. And Yogi was so gracious about all of it. He never ran out of smiles and almost never got upset with the crowds at restaurants. Maybe once he felt overwhelmed and then we just found a new restaurant to eat at. Those fans had given him the greatest gift in the world, a family that loved him and cheered him and made Yankee Stadium a home, and he never forgot that. After Yogi’s funeral, his sons joked to me that whenever they offered to give him a ride or grab supper with him during those times, he’d tell them, “Sorry, Gator is taking us out.”

  It wasn’t just me who loved having Yogi around. The players loved it. They’d enjoy busting his chops because Yogi was old-school and he liked hobnobbing with everyone just like he was one of the guys, even though everyone knew he was more than that—a legend. But that’s how he wanted it. To joke around and be joked around with.

  But he wasn’t just some sort of mascot, either. He still had the brilliant eye for baseball, teaching the game that made him so great. Players would pick his brain and they got invaluable lessons. It was great for them, and it was great for Yogi, too. It made him feel important. Not in some patronizing way, because the reality was that he was important.

  During the games, he and I always sat on the same spots on the bench, right by the entrance to the clubhouse. The bat racks were on one side, then the bins for the bubble gum, then a couple of coolers with the water and Gatorade. We sat next to those, and he’d lean against the coolers if he needed. We sat there all game and he’d share his observations. Even in his later years, they were keen as ever. He noticed everything.

  One game, we were watching as Nick Swisher, who was on the Yankees from 2009 to 2012, stepped to the plate. He was facing a sinkerballer, and he weakly grounded out to the left side. Second time he comes up, same thing. Weak ground ball. “Why doesn’t he either move up in the batter’s box or get closer to the plate so he can get a better swing on that type of pitch?” Yogi said to me.

  “What the hell are you telling me for? Tell him!”

  Yogi laughed. “Oh no,
I don’t wanna bother those kids.”

  The next night, we’re facing the same type of pitcher. We’re sitting on the bench watching as Swisher takes his first at-bat. He does the same thing, weak contact, and gets out. Again, Yogi didn’t feel it was his place to say something. Swisher comes back to the dugout, puts his helmet in its spot and his bat in the rack. As he gets set to walk past us I stand up and put a hand on his shoulder. I tell him to sit in my seat and to listen to Yogi. He does just that.

  “Swish,” Yogi said, “what type of pitcher is that?”

  “Sinkerballer,” Swisher said.

  “You should either move up in the batter’s box or move closer to the plate to where you can get a better swing at it, before it starts to break and run. You’d get a better swing at it.”

  They spoke for a few minutes and Swisher got up, clearly taking in what Yogi said. Sure enough, next time Swisher was up he cranked one of those sinkers off the left-center-field wall. Now, whenever Swisher got a big hit he’d point to the sky to honor his grandmother. So he did that. Then he started pointing right at Yogi. I elbowed Yogi; he saw and he got a kick out of it. Then, when Swisher came back into the dugout, he ran in and thanked Yogi for the tip.

  I love what Swish said after. “I’d quit playing if I had the opportunity like you to sit next to him all game.”

  When you spend enough time with Yogi, you learn that the Yogi-isms are based in reality. He’d just say something that would stop you in your tracks—or in this case, made me stop my car because I was laughing so damn hard. One time I had to drive Yogi to the airport in Florida. You could tell if Yogi was in a good mood by whether or not he was waving, and this day he wasn’t. He got into my truck cussing up a storm.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked. He grumbled something about having to fly out to Los Angeles to film an “affliction” commercial. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about. Was it about cancer? Or some medicine? What in the world is an affliction commercial?

  “You know,” he snorted, “with that damn duck.”

  I had to pull over, I was laughing so damn hard. “Aflac!” I said. Then he realized. He started laughing too. But what was funnier was what happened when I picked him up on the way back. He sauntered on out of the terminal and into my truck and offered this big revelation.

  “Gator, you realize that duck doesn’t really talk?”

  But for every one of those stories about Yogi, there are dozens more about what he was like as a player and coach. The complete collection is why he’s so beloved. And for a guy who won three MVPs and ten World Series titles and went to fifteen All-Star Games, he talked as if he hadn’t accomplished a damn thing in his entire career. The only way you could get him to talk about himself was to ask about other people, and he’d have to mention himself in the process. What was it like to catch Larsen’s perfect game? To play for Casey Stengel? To bat against Sandy Koufax? Ask something like that, over dinner or on a car ride, and you could sit back and listen for hours.

  And no matter how old he got, you could still get flashes of the fiery competitor that made him who he was. My favorite way to do that was to bring up the 1955 World Series, which the Dodgers went on to win against Yogi and the Yankees in seven games. The way to get him riled up was to bring up game one, which the Yankees won despite a call that Yogi had never gotten over even half a century later. During the eighth inning of that game, Jackie Robinson stole home on a Whitey Ford delivery and got underneath Yogi’s tag. Or so said the home-plate umpire. Yogi was furious. He got just as angry every instance he was coaxed into retelling the story. The stubbornness that made him so great never subsided.

  A few years ago he signed a picture of the play for President Barack Obama:

  Dear Mr. President,

  He was out!

  Yogi Berra.

  * * *

  —

  When I began going to spring training as an instructor, George said, “I’d like you to come as long as you enjoy it.” After ten years, I was still enjoying it. But I began to ask myself, “How much longer will I continue to love it and keep doing it?” Maybe twenty years, I thought. That long, I told myself, would feel like a real accomplishment, like you’ve done something good for a long time. All of a sudden, just like that, I get to twenty years and I’m packing my truck and going down again. Then I’m telling myself, “Wait a minute, I was looking at twenty, and now I’m at twenty-five.” That’s unusual for me. When I say to myself “This is it,” that’s usually it.

  By this time, Yogi had stopped coming to spring training. He was physically unable to go. He was back home, had been feeling on and off, good and bad. Some days Joni Bronander from Yogi’s museum, who’d look after him, would call and say he’s doing good today, so I should call him. So I’d do that, and we’d talk and it’d be great.

  About a month before Yogi passed in 2015, I was headed up to New York after spring training for various events and found that I had a full day free. So it dawned on me that I’m doing nothing that day, and the Yankees were playing a day game, so I ought to surprise Yogi. We’ll get something to eat, watch the game, and it’ll be great. So I call Joni, set it all up but tell her not to tell him about it. Keep it a surprise. She said she knew this place where Yogi loved the cheeseburgers; she’d pick some up for us.

  So I drive there that day, and she pokes her head into Yogi’s room. He’s sitting in bed. “Look what I found in the hall,” she says. He turned his head, and I walk in.

  “Hey, buddy, what’s happenin’,” I said. Oh, the big smile he got on his face! He sat up in bed; I walked over, gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. We start talking, and I tell him I’m here to watch the game with him. Then his face lit up even more when Joni told him he was getting those cheeseburgers and fries he loves. “Oh, that little place down the road makes ’em good,” he said.

  So we sat there and watched the game just like we would’ve on the bench all those years ago. An inning or so in, somebody came to take Yogi to meet with the physical therapist—well, Yogi wasn’t having that.

  Then, during the game, the conversation on the broadcast turned to me and Yogi. Whoever was hitting at the time accidentally flung his bat into the dugout while he was swinging and guys had to scatter all over the place. There had been an instance in spring training a few years before where the exact same thing happened.

  At that time, Yogi and I were sitting in the dugout and the bat came flying in, twirling right at us. I jumped up in front to make sure the bat didn’t hit him. When it reached us, it just grazed me on the kneecap. It stung but wasn’t anything noteworthy. But what was amazing was seeing the entire team come over and make sure everything was all right. They didn’t care if I was okay, of course, they wanted to make sure Yogi was okay…even though the bat didn’t hit him. So the announcers were laughing about that because the whole affair—me jumping in front, and everybody checking on Yogi even though the bat didn’t hit him—was a testament to how everyone cared so much about Yogi.

  To take a step back, earlier in 2015, before I had gone to New York to see Yogi, I had spoken with Joe Girardi, the Yankees manager at the time, and said it was probably my last year of coming to spring training. He protested, of course. Joe always loved having us around and treated us great. “No, no, no,” he said.

  “Look, guys. I’ve been coming since 1990 as a coach, I’m over sixty years old, I think I’d like to stay home. I haven’t seen a Louisiana February since 1972. It’s been on my mind, and I think it’s time.” Joe said he’d call me next year anyway. Deep down inside, I had made my decision and I thought that was that.

  So when they started recounting that story on the telecast about the bat during spring training, I said to Yogi, “Well, that’s never going to happen to me again.”

  “What do you mean?” Yogi asked. So I told him that I had talked with Joe about that spring be
ing my last spring.

  Yogi sat up in his bed as much as he could. I was in a chair next to him. The moment suddenly grew very intense. He looked at me intently. “Oh no. You’ve got to go.”

  “What?”

  “Oh no,” he repeated. “You’ve got to keep going.”

  “Why in the hell do I gotta keep going?”

  “Because,” he said, “I won’t be able to go.”

  That turn of phrase—“I won’t be able to go”—it struck me. I didn’t know if he meant physically. Did he mean that he couldn’t go? Or he was not going to be around to go?

  “Yogi,” I said. “I might go a couple more years.”

  Then I leaned over and cracked a big smile. “But I will tell you this: I’m not going until I’m over eighty years old like you.” Then he started laughing. The tension was over. But I kept thinking about what he was saying.

  And it’s why I continued going even after his passing a month later. If I stop going, does all of it stop? Would Goose stop going? Who’s gonna take your place? But in the last couple of years, more and more of the younger—and when I say younger, I mean relative to me—guys have started to come, which is great. Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams, and others. Which is great. Because you know, I know, we know, that all of these stories, lessons, and rich tradition that all distinctly belong to the New York Yankees…they’ll continue.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There have been so many times when we’ve all been together and someone asks: Did all of that really happen? Yes, it did.

  I have so many people to thank for this book, but for that reason the first people I would like to acknowledge are the Yankees and my incredible teammates. All of these stories, and all of this great history, we lived through it together. Mr. Steinbrenner and the Yankees took a chance on a string bean from Louisiana and I could not be more grateful. The organization has continued to be a family for me, and so many others, even since my retirement—which is just the greatest testament to the class of the Steinbrenner family, the front office, and everyone who has welcomed us back every season. Once a Yankee, always a Yankee. There is nothing like it.