When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes - Softcover

Berra, Yogi; Kaplan, Dave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786887443 ISBN 13: 9780786887446

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2002

Synopsis

Yogi Berra (1925-2015), a fifteen-time Major League Baseball All Star, played on a record ten World Series champion teams for the New York Yankees. Off the field, Berra's wit and humor made him "one of the most universally beloved figures in American life" (Washington Post).

In When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!, Berra provides his inspiring, funny, and surprisingly moving thoughts on life, happiness and getting through slumps. From "It ain't over til it's over" (persistence) and "A nickel aunt worth a dime anymore" (teaching kids the value of money), these essays illustrate how the rules of life and baseball are uncannily similar. The book is a joyful, insightful legacy of "baseball's greatest catcher" (Wall Street Journal) and an "American treasure" (Fox Sports).

About this title

Review

Hall of Fame philosopher Yogi Berra's When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It! is another volume of musings and malaprops, and the advice implicit in the title is sound indeed. Just listen: "Throughout life you come to serious forks in the road--decisions," Yogi tells us. "Which path do you choose? Sometimes it's tough. People are always afraid of making the wrong choice." Not Yogi, who explains that tragedy lies in paralysis, not bad choices or regrets, and offers personal examples from on and off the field to prop up his profundity.

Like its predecessor, The Yogi Book, Fork is essentially a collection of Yogi's well-traveled observations from out of left field, but it's much more than just déjà vu all over again. Instead of explaining, as he has before, what prompted a particular Yogi-ism or what he was really trying to say, Yogi does his best to go deep. The charm is that Yogi's so guileless, he makes it work--there's sagacity in his simplicity. Each Yogi-ism gets its own short chapter in which Yogi riffs off the phrase to dispense a bit of homespun wisdom and inspiration. "It gets late early out there"--we get old before we're ready, but here's how to cope with it. "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him"--we all need to be true to ourselves. With Yogi's latest career as a successful author, not only ain't it over for him, there's happily no end in sight. --Jeff Silverman

About the Author

Yogi Berra transformed himself from barefoot sandlotter into one of the greatest catchers and clutch hitters in the history of the game. He anchored the New York Yankees' dynasty from the late 1940s to early '60s, becoming a 18-time All-Star, winner of 10 world championships (most in baseball history) and three-time Most Valuable Player along the way. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972 and was a member of Major League Baseball's All-Century Team. As a manager with both New York teams, he became the first man in over 40 years to win pennants in different leagues (Yankees in 1964, Mets in 1973).

Dave Kaplan is the founding director of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, a nonprofit sports education center founded in 1998 on the campus of Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0786887443
• ISBN 13: 9780786887446
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 176