Yankee Legend Yogi Berra Greets Local Fans

Former Yankee baseball great Yogi Berra came to Last Licks at the Rye Ridge Shopping Center Saturday–and the Hall of Fame catcher, outfielder and manager was a big hit signing autographs for big bucks with the local crowd, many of whom had lined up almost two hours earlier to be among the first in line.

Lawrence Peter (Yogi) Berra, 85, arguably the greatest catcher of all time, crouched down seated behind a table at the entrance to the ice cream parlor and sports memorabilia store, signing autographs with an indistinguishable flourish –L.Berra or Y Berra –at $75 a piece, with small sized pictures of Yogi in uniform in his heyday selling for $7.50, large sized pictures costing $25 and oversized photos selling for $125.

Baseballs cost $25, and baseball bats went for $150, with Yogi's signature on them also costing that $75 extra with the option of posing for a picture with Yogi at each signing.

The way it worked, to get close to Yogi you bought a ticket at the ice cream counter from Rye Brook's Victoria Ferrer, and each ticket was good for a Yogi autograph, and the right to pose for a picture shaking hands with the Yankee's great across the table. You could purchase pictures, tickets and memorabilia (bats, baseballs) at the counter.

And other than smiling, signing and shaking hands, the usually talkative Yogi proved to be a man of few words.

"We don't talk at these kinds of signing sessions, no interviews, no conversations, Yogi just signs and smiles," said a representative for New Rochelle-based Steiner Sports, sellers of all kinds of sports memorabilia and the booking agent for celebrities like Yogi. Last Licks-style ice cream and memorabilia stores throughout the metro area are a part of the Steiner empire.

Balding, bespectacled Eric Levy does the bookings for Steiner, and said everything you had to know about booking Berra was available on YogiBerra.com, a treasure trove of information on the Yogi, his corporation (LTD Enterprises Inc.) and the Yogi Berra Baseball Museum and Learning Center and Yogi Berra Stadium on the campus of New Jersey's Montclair State University, which is in Berra's current hometown of Montclair, N.J.

Berra, whose most famous quote is "It ain't over till its over," arrived at Rye Ridge around 10 a.m. about an hour before he was scheduled to start signing autographs until 1 p.m.

And the first on a long line waiting to greet Berra was Rye's Pablo Hendler, who was there with his son, Lucas, a student at the Midland School.

"Why am I here almost two hours early?" mused Hendler. "Because there was never anyone else like Yogi Berra, he may be the greatest catcher of all time and one of the greatest Yankees of all time," he said. "It gives me chills to think of meeting an all-time great like Yogi, it gives me that old time feeling of being young again, of going to Yankee Stadium for the first time."

And what was Lucas going to say when he asked Berra for his autograph? Lucas paused in playing with his video game, thought for a moment, and answered:

"Yogi, how good were you, and what made you so good?"

But when Lucas actually met Yogi all he did was smile shyly and shake his hand while his dad said: "It is an honor and privilege to meet you, Yogi."

Actually, all the aging boys of summer, many in Yankee jackets, sweatshirts, T-shirts and baseball caps, said variations of the same thing while Yogi looked up, smiled and posed. Yogi kept extending his fingers to the worshipful kids, most in Yankee attire, who wanted to pose shaking his hand.

"I don't really know much about Yogi Berra, but I understand he was a baseball legend," said Cheryl Castellano, the manager of Last Licks, who was taking in the crowd, ranging in age from infants in strollers to old men in baseball caps well into their 80s.

Behind her head were several pictures of Berra in his baseball prime, and at the side of the ice cream counter were mounds of perhaps the most famous picture of Yogi Berra ever, the unforgettable shot of Yogi, that creased number eight on his uniform's back, leaping into the arms of Yankee pitcher Don Larsen's arms when he caught Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, the only no-hitter ever thrown in post-season play. Their embrace following the 27th out is among baseball's most famous images.

Yogi, who picked up his famous nickname from a friend (Bobby Hoffman) who said Berra resembled a Hindu holy man (Yogi) they had seen in a movie whenever Berra sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after losing a game.

The nickname stuck, from the sandlots of St. Louis where Berra played in a primarily Italian neighborhood called "The Hill" throughout his professional career, primarily with the Yankees, from his debut on Sept. 22, 1946 to his final at bat with the Mets on May 9, 1965, with a lot of hits in between, more than 3,643 career total bases, 358 career homes runs and three time American League Most Valuable Player (on teams that included Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Joe DiMaggio). Berra was selected to 15-All-Star games and won 13 World Series championship rings on his way to a Hall of Fame career.

The sunlight glinted off one of those diamond-studded World Series rings as Yogi signed away at Last Licks, while looking up into pictures across the way of current Yankee greats Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera.

Perhaps fittingly, while seated and signing hundreds of autographs, Yogi's head peered out from behind a quote from Joe DiMaggio.

"I thank God for making me a Yankee," it said.