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

2 Ratings: 4.5

A book by Yogi Berra

Hall of Fame philosopher Yogi Berra'sWhen 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," … see full wiki

Tags: Books

Author: Yogi Berra

Genre: Sports

Publisher: Hyperion

1 review about When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take...

Showing 1-1 of 1

Sort by:

Yogi-isms explained by Yogi

Oct 14, 2007

by CharlesAshbacher
posted in Cafe Libri: Reviewing Books & More

Rating:

While the basis of this book is a collection of some of the Yogi-isms, which always contain a great deal of truth, the best part is that Yogi explains his thoughts on each one of them, While he was a great player for a series of great Yankee teams, Berra was always thought of as a bit of a simpleton. His most famous sayings, where he used internal contradictions to make a point, are funny and seem to indicate a lack of knowledge of English and how it is used. However, it is that internal contradiction that makes the point so well. For example, some of the -isms explained in this book are:

*) It gets late early out there
*) We have deep depth
*) Always go to other peoples funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours
*) You can observe a lot by watching

After each of the -isms, Berra explains the context within which he made the statement and reveals a great deal of the history of his life, his thoughts about life in general and the directions that baseball is going. He comes across as a man who came from humble beginnings, yet has never lost contact with those roots and who was always in control of his actions. He harbors no jealousy regarding what modern ballplayers make, although he has some negative words concerning their off the field actions. He is also saddened by the decline in the popularity of young people playing baseball. It is a rare occasion when you see pickup games being played on the sandlots. He also laments the situation in organized youth baseball such as little league. Like all other youth sports, there is a fierce and counter-productive competitiveness that destroys the joy that children have the right to feel when they are playing engaged in sports.
This is a book about and by a man that is close to being the most quoted person in the American society. His phrases are used in many facets of our lives, from sports to politics. Hardly a week goes by when I don't hear one of his phrases and I often use them myself. It was fun to read Yogi's explanations of them.

What did you think of this review?

Helpful

Thought-Provoking

Fun to Read

Well-Organized