By mid-February, with winter completely over-staying its welcome (in the Northeast, at least), great comfort can be had in thinking about the first stirrings of spring training. It’s one of baseball’s most enduring charms, how it follows the arc of the seasons.
This time a half-century ago, Yogi Berra, one of baseball’s greatest, would be showing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, warming up Whitey Ford, horsing around with Phil Rizzuto, welcoming, with the rest of the team, Joe Dimaggio after his injury-shortened 1949 season. Eight months later the Yankees will win their 13th World Championship, defeating the Phillies in four games and earning Yogi one of his record-holding ten World Series rings.
Today Yogi is as famous for his quotations as he is for his superstar career. Later this spring Workman will be publishing a revised edition of The New York Times bestseller, The Yogi Book, which collects all of his famously quotable quotes. A favorite: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” This is Yogi giving driving directions to his childhood pal, Joe Garagiola.
“A Fork in the Road”
Just as we were preparing to get the new edition off to the printer, this turned up in the middle of Downing Street, across from Workman’s offices:
A good omen for Yogi, right?
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