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- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change presidents in this country is by voting.

- I'’m hopeful that this is the beginning to accountability.

- Life without dance is boring.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I did do the finale, and guess where my trailer was?

A block away from my apartment, it couldn'’t have been better!

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

-_ It'’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it'’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, folks.

This is "Remember Them."

I'm Steve Adubato with my co-anchor, and our Executive Producer, Jacqui Tricarico.

Hey Jacqui, who do we have today that we are remembering and why?

- We are honoring the great Yogi Berra.

He was born actually, in 1925, as Lawrence Peter Berra but the nickname Yogi stuck in his teen years.

A friend of his came up with that nickname and that's how everybody knows him.

I don't think anybody knows him as Lawrence Peter Berra.

But he was one of the greatest baseball players that ever lived, I think in many people's opinions, and we're able to listen back to an interview you did back in 2016 with his granddaughter, Lindsay Berra, who's actually a freelance sports journalist, kind of following in her grandfather's footsteps a little bit in that way.

Really involved in the sports community and she's also on the Board of the Yogi Berra Museum.

The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center is in Montclair, New Jersey, and just does a bunch of wonderful things.

I know you've been there a couple of times, Steve.

- That's Montclair State University, on the campus of Montclair State University, where you and Jackie Heyer did great work academically and actually graduated, I just wanna clarify that, right?

- Yep, alumnus of MSU of course, and I remember my time there, I had gone into the museum a couple of times and you know, something about the museum is that it definitely celebrates Yogi and baseball, but so many other things.

They have a bunch of educational programs that they offer, connecting baseball and STEM, and another program that they offer, which I find really interesting, is "Poetry, Spoken Word and Yogisms," right?

Yogi was known for these Yogisms, these one-off liners- - Hey, what's your favorite?

- That just stuck.

- Jacqui, one Yogi- - "It ain't over until it's over," right?

- I think that's the most famous one.

What about for you?

I know there's a lot that have been out there for a long time.

- It's the obvious one.

"When you come to the fork in the road, take it."

(laughs) Yogi... Set up the first interview, because we're about to see Lindsay Berra, who loves baseball, played baseball, knows baseball.

She is the official family historian for Yogi, even though he had three terrific sons.

Dale, who played baseball, not only for the Yankees but for Montclair High back in the day and also the Pirates.

Three sons, but also the interview we did with his granddaughter, Lindsay, is fabulous.

But before that, set up the Neal Shapiro piece.

Like, why do you have the President of the WNET, family of stations, why is he on?

Jacqui, set it up.

- You know, Neal Shapiro is a historian in his own right when it comes to baseball.

He just loves baseball so much.

He's dedicated a lot of his time to learning about so many of these people.

We have him joining us for a couple other interviews about some baseball legends like Larry Doby and Monte Irvin, and he just kinda lends his expertise about Yogi Berra and his impact.

Not just here in New Jersey but across the country and even across the world.

I mean, who doesn't know Yogi Berra?

So, he helps us set the interview up and then we do hear from Lindsay Berra.

Like we said, 2016 was the interview you did with her.

It was about a month after his passing.

He passed away in September 2015, in West Caldwell.

But I know that he continues to live on in that museum, the Yogi Berra Museum in Montclair, because they've said they really dedicated that to reflect the values of Yogi, like his loyalty, his passion, his respect, his selflessness, his service.

- Yogi, talk about service to our nation.

He was a great baseball player, as Lindsay will talk about, but also he had, Jacqui I never told you this.

We went to the same church, Immaculate Conception church, here in Montclair.

But every day, every day without fail, he would go to a place called Henry's, which is a delicatessen on Bloomfield Avenue in Verona.

He'd pick up his coffee and his bun, or his butter roll I think it was, and I know that sounds crazy but every day he was so friendly to everyone at Henry's.

Everyone knew him.

He was the quintessential superstar who was the most regular person ever, an incredible person.

So yeah, Jacqui, we're doing this with Neal first, who is the quintessential Yankee fan and knows baseball and respects Yogi's contribution.

And right after that, Dale Berra, it's not Dale Berra, Lindsay Berra.

This is a great one to remember.

Right, Jacqui?

- Of course.

Yep, I'm so honored.

We get to remember Yogi Berra in this episode of "Remember Them."

And also he was a 2008 New Jersey Hall of Fame inductee, as he should have been, probably even before that because he's New Jersey.

- See Jacqui always provides a piece of information I missed.

Thank you, Jacqui.

Jacqui, Steve, "Remember Them."

Yogi Berra.

- As we continue to talk about the great, late Yogi Berra, we're joined by Neal Shapiro, the President, CEO of WNET Group, who happens to be historian when it comes to the Yankees, a huge fan.

Neal, first of all, thank you for talking a little Yogi with us.

- My pleasure.

- What makes Yogi Berra so worth remembering and honoring?

- You know, he's a, and people have forgotten just what a great ball player he was.

And probably the greatest Yankee catcher ever, maybe one of the greatest catchers ever, ever.

And even though he didn't look as chiseled as the other big stars on those Yankee machines, he was the catcher.

So, the most important job.

He hardly ever struck out a hit with tremendous power.

He played a long time.

That alone would make him great.

But the thing that I think makes Yogi special is that people identified with him.

You could look at Mickey Mantle and say, "I'm never gonna like Mickey Mantle."

The guy was a, you know, a chiseled piece of marble, right?

These are incredible athletes.

Yogi was different.

He was a little squat.

He didn't look like Adonis and he wasn't slick.

He wasn't Madison Avenue type.

On the other hand, he endorsed a ton of things because people saw he had that common touch.

You felt like you could talk to Yogi about anything.

Now, his answer might not always made sense to you, but you could relate to him.

And I think he had a, I think what makes the Yogi-ism so much fun is oftentimes there's a great deal of common sense in them, right?

I mean, if you really think about them.

They're memorable because he does actually get to a truth in them.

- Real quick on this, about Yogi, and Yogi and Carmen, his late wife, as well.

We happen to live in the same town.

And I remember seeing Yogi around town and Neal talks about him being a regular guy.

It wasn't something like, I have to come across as regular.

He just was.

What would Yogi, in your opinion, how would Yogi have done in this milieu and environment and age of sports?

- You know, I think he would've done better because I think where we live now, sometimes the digital stuff really just captured the essence of Yogi.

And I think there was something about him that made him so real and authentic.

You know, now, not to knock many of the athletes or many of the managers 'cause they talk, but they do talk in like straight baseball-isms, right?

They, so polished.

They say the same things over and over again.

It's the same cliches.

Yogi wouldn't do that.

Right?

I mean, and part of it, sometimes he may have mangled the perfect language because he was willing to go there.

He would try to say things as they were.

I think there was a refreshing honesty to him.

The other thing is, I think, you know, I look at all the Yankees who played with him and loved him, who he coached, like Ron Guidry, he never played with him, but Ron Guidry loved him.

All the Yankee players that he would come down and be the spring training instructor, remember so many Yankees went through that camp but Yogi had something special about all of them.

I think in them, they all saw the athlete that struggled.

They all saw the athlete that got the most out of every single bit of ability he had.

And what makes him so great is he's one of the best catchers ever.

But if you saw him walking down the street you'd never say that was gonna be him.

- Yeah.

That's why we had Neal, because he understands Yogi, why he matters, and why it's important to remember him.

Thanks, Neal.

- My pleasure.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- [Narrator] Yogi Berra is a national icon, an American folk hero.

Over the years, we have laughed at his Yogi-isms.

Everything from, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded," to the now legendary, "It ain't over till it's over."

But Yogi Berra, the man, is so much more than just funny sayings.

Born in St. Louis in 1925, he was the son of Italian immigrants and grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

From his family, he learned the values of hard work, perseverance, honesty, integrity, and loyalty.

As a teenager serving in the Navy during World War II, he participated in the greatest military operation in mankind's history.

The invasion of Normandy in June of 1944.

After the war, he anchored the great Yankee dynasty from 1947 to 1963.

During this time, other stars, such as Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford may have shown brighter, but none were more important to the Yankee success than was Yogi Berra.

He played a major role in the Yankee's winning 10 world championships during his Hall of Fame career.

Yogi himself won three Most Valuable Player awards, but to Yogi, individual accomplishments weren't unimportant.

What mattered most was the success of the team.

- [Steve] Yogi was the best.

And the young lady you're seeing on camera knows better than anyone.

Lindsay Berra.

Yogi's granddaughter, also columnist with MLB.com.

Your grandfather was the best.

- I agree wholeheartedly.

- For so many reasons.

When did you know he was Yogi Berra?

- You know, I tell people this all the time, even when he passed away now just six weeks ago, the outpouring of support and how many people knew who he was, I was even amazed by that.

So I know he's Yogi Berra but, you know I know that's his name.

When I was a kid, I knew he was the manager to the Yankees.

I was old before I realized that he was also a famous person.

Like even into my teens I didn't realize how famous he was, but this, when he passed away, that was a major reality check.

Just realizing how famous he was, how far his reach went.

You know, when I say I love my grandfather and someone comes up to me and says, "I loved your grandfather too," they mean it.

And they loved him as much as I did, and they're not kidding.

And that was a really amazing, sobering thing to really understand what his reach was like.

- Yeah.

He connected on so many levels.

By the way, as we do this program right around Thanksgiving, this will air many times after that, Yogi's just awarded the Medal of Freedom.

- [Lindsay] Yeah.

- It's a big deal.

- It's a really big deal.

And we were afraid that we weren't gonna get it for him.

We started a petition in May, around his 90th birthday.

We had to get 100,000 signatures on it in the thirty-day period that whitehouse.gov gives you to complete those things.

And we got them on June 8th and then some.

We got 110,000, but that was on June 8th.

And they didn't announce until just this past Monday, November 17th, I think, that he was going to get it.

So, we were sweating it out a little bit.

I am not a little sad about the fact that he's not here to get it himself, but we're still very proud and very happy that he is going to receive the medal.

- Lindsay, growing up in Montclair, you know, we're neighbors in town, known each other for a while.

And Montclair is a town that, you know Yogi and Carmen were Montclair, and it's hard for people to understand this.

It's because Yogi was also taken in by this entire country.

Tell folks, who may not appreciate or understand this, how they were embraced by everyone in the town.

And also Yogi's funeral at Immaculate Conception Church, happens to be a church I know well.

- I was talking with Harold Reynolds the other day, and he calls it Yogiville.

I live in Yogiville!

- Yeah.

He, he lives.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And Harold lives down- he's a neighbor too.

- Right.

- I think that because my grandparents were such normal folks, grandpa did everything for himself.

He went and got his own coffee.

- [Steve] He used to go to Henry's - [Lindsay] Henry's market every morning, got the papers, picked up his own dry cleaning.

They ate out a lot.

So they were at restaurants.

They were very visible, very accessible.

So anyone who lived in Montclair has a Yogi story has a picture with my grandpa, has been to his house.

They hand out candy on Halloween.

They used to get a horse and buggy outside the house on Thanksgiving and anybody who wanted to bring their kids could come up.

And my grandmother would have him in the house giving 'em a glass of champagne.

They were just normal folks really out there and liked to have fun in the community that they lived in.

So yeah, everybody knew him there.

- Yeah talking about taking pictures of Yogi.

I, I, I, you've never seen this shot.

It was at the opening of the stadium.

Take, look at that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's me.

- [Lindsay] Look at all that hair.

- [Steve] Yeah.

I know.

Take a look at that's our son, Steven, who is 23 right now.

- [Lindsay] Wow.

- [Steve] Okay.

The opening of the stadium.

- [Lindsay] Yep.

- [Steve] Right.

Yogi Berra stadium and the museum there to tell folks what that complex is and tell folks how significant that is at Montclair State University.

- So it's the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, that place opened when I was 21.

So yeah, it's 17, 18 years ago now, which is crazy.

It is attached to Yogi Berra stadium which is where the Montclair state baseball team and the New Jersey Jackals of the Can-Am league, they play there.

But the museum is terrific.

It serves 20,000 school kids a year, teaches character education programs to, you know basically any age kid that wants to come through teaches grandpa's values of leadership, inclusion, sportsmanship, loyalty, being a nice person.

And it really has, has become my grandfather's legacy.

- Yeah, by the way for those who've never been to the museum, check it out.

It's extraordinary.

It really is a little bit more about your family.

You know, your grandmother, Carmen and Yogi were this amazing couple.

It was 65 years?

- 65 years, yeah.

- Describe that marriage.

- It really is unlike anything I've ever seen, people are not married for 65 years anymore.

And they were such an extension of the other.

I, I don't, I mean, I'm very happy he did but I'm amazed that he made it 18 months without her once she, she passed away, they really were just incredible.

She'll say the reason they were married for 65 years was because grandpa played baseball and was gone for half of those, those days, but just, he loved her so much.

We have, if anyone ever does come to the museum and you read the love letters that he wrote to her, 1948 on hotel stationary, and they're so sweet and sappy they say things like, "My dearest darling, I can't go another moment without you.

How ever will I last until I see you again?

I went three for four today."

- Hold on.

Yogi wrote these to Carmen?

- Yogi wrote my grandmother love letters.

Yep.

And they're on like hotel stationary, little, you know with the hotel seal at the top in his perfect penmanship for a guy who dropped outta school in the eighth grade, he's got this beautiful script.

And my grandmother for years, wouldn't let us see them.

We knew they existed.

And when we renovated the museum, we said, Gram we're gonna have this whole wall.

And it's, it's designated for the love letters.

Are you gonna give 'em to us?

And it took to the last minute, but she did.

She, she turned them over.

- You have been into sports and you know, sports you write about it, you understand it on a lot of levels.

I'm gonna, if you could, as a, you know obsessed Yankee fan and, and our president Neil Shapiro will appreciate this as well.

And all Yankee fans will appreciate this.

And those who love Yogi, I'm gonna throw out some names.

- [Lindsay] Okay?

No problem.

- Who I know Yogi, people who Yogi got close relationships with, and I want you to talk about it.

- [Lindsay] Okay.

- And the first that is a powerful relationship is Phil Rizzuto, talk about it.

- Phil Rizzuto is my father's godfather.

My dad, Larry is my grandparents' oldest son.

They became friends, you know right when grandpa got to New York, Grammy was really good friends with Cora Rizzuto.

They opened a bowling alley together.

- [Steve] The Rizzuto Barrel Bowl, Route Three.

- Where Romance Emporium was.

- Clifton, New Jersey.

- Yeah.

Clifton.

Yeah.

They were, they were great friends for, for forever.

And, and my uncles and my dad were friends with all the kids.

And, and yeah.

- Is it true that when Phil Rizzuto was in an assisted living facility, very late in his life that Yogi used to go and visit him, they'd play cards and and Yogi would wait until Phil would fall asleep.

- Yep.

I think he was doing it once or twice a week there at the end, they were buddies.

They, they just- - [Steve] Like for real?

- Oh, for real.

And all of those, the, those Yankee teammates, they were they were close, those guys.

And my grandmother, by the way, did the same for Cora when she was in assisted living.

- [Steve] Whitey Ford.

- Whitey just makes me laugh.

He's great.

- [Steve] Why?

- Because he's just so funny.

He's hilarious.

He taught me to line dance when I was a kid at the Hall of Fame when Stan Musial would play the harmonica, Stan tried to teach me to play the harmonica and declared me useless.

So Whitey taught me to line dance and we would line dance while Stan played the harmonica.

- What do you- you were around these people?

- Oh yeah, as a kid growing up for sure.

They were my grandfather's friends.

You were around your grandfather's friends, right?

- He taught you how to line dance, but you couldn't.

- No.

Well, no.

In line dancing I was okay, I couldn't play the harmonica.

- Couldn't play the harmonica.

- But no Whitey Whitey was, we saw him at old timer's day.

My dad is good friends with young Eddie Ford.

And I'm good friends with their grandson, youngest, Eddie Ford.

- [Steve] Right.

- Yeah.

Just great lifetime friendships there.

- The other- there'll be a picture that they drop in a little bit later on, but I was always interested in this.

I have a, a picture of Yogi and Elston Howard.

I was always struck by that relationship because Elston Howard was the first African American player with the Yankees.

And from what I understand your grandfather really took him in.

- [Lindsay] Yeah.

- Talk about that.

- My grandfather and Ellie were very close and that that relationship went on until Ellie died.

And, and we're also still good friends with with Arlene Howard, his wife, Cheryl, his daughter.

Grandpa used to go eat at, at restaurants with Ellie in Florida because Ellie wasn't allowed to go to the to the white restaurants.

I think grandpa did that.

It, it it's really an example of what a special person grandpa was.

He never saw color.

Most colorblind human being you'll ever meet in your entire life.

He was friends with Jackie Robinson, Elston, Minnie Minoso, the first black and Latin players.

And I always say was on the right side of the color line when it was the wrong place to be and helped kind of push civil rights in baseball which in turn did that in the country, which was one of the things I kept saying when we were trying to get him the Medal of Freedom.

But his relationship was at with Ellie was a lifelong friendship.

And it didn't matter, black or white.

The fact that Ellie was his backup for a while and then ended up taking grandpa's place.

None of that mattered.

They were just buddies.

- You know, what's so interesting about the way you describe your grandfather.

He, he didn't speak a lot.

I remember the first time I interviewed him one-on-one before One on One came to public television, we were at another network and he came down with Dale, your uncle.

He comes down with Dale and he does the interview but he's given me one word answers which I know you're familiar with.

- He makes you work hard.

- Right.

He makes me work really hard.

And I'm thinking to myself, Yogi doesn't wanna be here.

Didn't really, really wanna do the interviews.

And I, and I would see them every once in a while in those situations where he didn't if he didn't wanna open up, you wouldn't open up.

But the fact is, see, when you talked about him in the civil rights, he was, he was a leader.

He didn't have to make a speech.

- No, he, he, grandpa was just one of those.

I mean, and I think it's rare and extraordinary.

And I don't know that I've seen it again especially not in another athlete.

He just did the right thing all the time because it was the right thing to do.

- [Steve] How does he know the right thing?

- He just had this moral compass.

- [Steve] He grew up in St. Louis?

- He grew up in St.Louis on the hill.

His parents came from Italy.

He was born here.

- I hate to call what they- can I, if I can say they, they call it, did they- they, they called it Dago Hill.

- [Lindsay] Yes, they did call it Dago Hill.

He grew up down the street from Joe Garagiola.

- [Steve] Joe Garagiola, right.

- And Jack Buck.

And they, his brothers worked so grandpa could quit his job to go play baseball.

I think that he felt very fortunate to even have been able to play baseball because they were poor and everybody in the family needed to contribute.

And his brothers worked these doubles.

So he was able to play.

And I think he just knew where he came from.

And he was always very grateful for that.

And I think his grand-- his parents taught him about showing respect for people, for other people for where you came from, where they came from.

And I don't think you had to try very hard at it.

He was just a good guy.

- Couple other people, I wanna ask you one more thing.

I wanna make sure I get this question asked.

Lindsay how would you want your grandfather Yogi Berra to be remembered?

- People ask me this a lot too.

I got a little frustrated when they had the MLB had the four guys on the field at the all star game and it was, I'm gonna mess it up.

It was Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax, Johnny Bench and Willie Mays.

And they had them as the four greatest living players.

And I said, wait a minute, where's grandpa?

I mean, he won more world series than these guys combined, and you know, the stats are there.

What, what's going on?

And the problem is that younger people who vote online didn't see grandpa play.

And they don't quite remember his impact on the field.

And I would love for them to remember some of those amazing stats that he had, 597 bats and 12 strikeouts in 1951.

That's insane.

That will ne- Ryan Howard strikes out 12 times on a weekend right?

So like those things I would love for them to remember, but really I think grandpa's legacy is, is what we teach at the museum that that being great on the field is fine.

But being a good person is the most important thing.

And I always say if, if people that know who he was just kind of think about how he would behave and they're nice to their neighbors and good to everyone they meet and show people the same kind of respect, his legacy is in that behavior.

And, and he will live forever, so.

- Let me ask about you a little bit.

- [Lindsay] Sure.

- How'd you get into sports writing?

You were just a kid when you did it.

- I did.

It was my mother's idea.

I didn't know what to do in college.

And she said, well, you're great at English.

And you can write, so why don't you be a sports writer?

And for lack of a better idea, I said, okay.

I went to journalism school at North Carolina and started at ESPN magazine, right outta college.

I was there for 13 years and I've been at MLB for three now.

- [Steve] You love sports.

- [Lindsay] I do.

- Why?

- I don't really think I had a choice.

- [Steve] In the blood.

- Yeah.

I mean, my mother's father was a basketball official and you know, grandpa Yogi, I watched, you know, manage and Dale was playing baseball and my dad played baseball and they all loved hockey.

I started skating as a, as a kid.

I played hockey my whole life.

It was what we did my mother, you know, wasn't big on letting us watch TV.

So go outside, played with the balls and the sticks and stuff that we have.

That's me playing in Wayne Gretzky's fantasy camp.

- [Steve] That's you?

- [Lindsay] I score- yeah, it's me.

I scored a couple goals off of Wayne, but it's not, or with Wayne it's, it's not very hard to score when you're with Wayne Gretzky, you go, you park yourself back door and he basically banks the puck in off your stick and makes you look really awesome.

- [Steve] He made you look good.

- [Lindsay] Yeah he did.

- Before I let you go, I just wanna do this.

You know, it's so interesting with sports figures that become popular.

If you will, for short periods of time, for certain kinds of things, it's, it's hard to actually have heroes.

It's hard to have people who endure.

You know?

Yogi Berra was 90, right?

My sense is that many, many years from now, people will still be talking about him.

Well beyond his passing.

Do you think it has as much to do with who he was as a human being, as a person beyond those incredible statistics you just talked about?

- I, I do think so.

I think that anybody who was alive to see him play does tell some pretty amazing stories and they trickle down.

I had a, a, a 13 year old kid come up to me and say "Your grandfather's my favorite player ever."

And he's 13, like there's no way he ever saw him play.

And I say, "Well, then your dad and your grandpa must be doing a really good job of telling you how good he was."

But especially in this area where almost everybody has a story of interacting with my grandfather, I think that that's what really carries him.

And people know about his service and in the the D-day invasion, about what he did, you know after he stopped playing with the museum.

- Sure.

- And I think that he's out there enough and, and the yogi-isms, come on.

Every, every president since Kennedy has quoted those things.

- [Narrator] At a time when the world of sports has produced So few good role models for our Kids to look up to, Yogi Berra represents everything we want our kids to be, and for all his accomplishments in a remarkable life, Yogi himself wants his wants lasting and living legacy to be the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center here in Montclair, New Jersey.

A place where children can come to learn, not only about baseball, but also about family, community, science, society, history, culture, and so much more.

Indeed, a man'’s true greatness should not be measured by what he accomplished for himself in his lifetime, But how he touched the lives of other people.

Yogi Berra has touched millions of people.

He is so much more than just a Hall of Fame ballplayer.

Yogi Berra is a Hall of Fame man.

- [Narrator] One on One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by PSE&G, NJM Insurance Group.

Hackensack Meridian Health.

The New Jersey Education Association.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Prudential Financial.

Kean University.

And by New Jersey Sharing Network.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by New Jersey Monthly.