"It ain’t over till it’s over," he once told us, and now that it really is sadly, touchingly and poignantly over for the great man, say this: He leaves us smiling.
Yogi Berra is the only Hall of Famer who was part fact, part fiction and all American.
He heroically fought on D-Day as a member of the U.S. Navy, manning a machine gun and providing cover fire at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. He also was believed to be the inspiration for the long-running, beloved cartoon character, Yogi Bear.
“Believed” is a key word in the grand, sprawling life of Lawrence Peter Berra.