RIP Yogi Berra, 90

Garagiola was Yogi's No. 1 PR guy.

 

I met Garagiola once. I know this is no surprise, but holy shit the guy never shut up. Loud as hell, too.

 

I don't think Yogi's greatness as a player was "forgotten" as much as there just aren't that many people around anymore who SAW that greatness.

Face it: His career as a HOF ballplayer basically ended in 1963. His career as a lovable quipster ended in September 2015. I'm 54 years old. A dinosaur. My earliest memory of Yogi is him doing athlete's foot commercials. I haven't forgotten how great he was as a player. I just never saw it to be able to forget it.

 

Serious question. Was Berra the greatest catcher of all time? A friend of mine is posting on facebook about this and can't believe Berra isn't considered the best of all time. He strongly believes Bench is overrated. My personal top five (in no real order) would be Cochrane, Berra, Campanella, Bench, Rodriguez.

Thoughts?

 

I'm not sure what you do with Ivan Rodriguez. His numbers would put him in the conversation for greatest ever, but he's "Steroid Era."

If you tell me Berra is the best ever, I'm not going to argue. And I'm not somebody who enjoys heaping praise on Yankees.

 

I think Yogi helped invent the Internet too.