Yogi Berra Dies (2015)

September 22, 2015. A Tuesday night, an assisted-living facility in West Caldwell, New Jersey. Yogi Berra died in his sleep, ninety years old, sixty-nine years to the day after he'd gone 2-for-4 with a home run in his major league debut. Nobody scripted that anniversary. It just happened, the way so much of Berra's life just happened to land on the right date, the right quote, the right photograph. The most decorated champion in the history of American professional sports was gone, and baseball spent the next week trying to say something worthy of him.

The News Breaks

The Yankees were in Toronto when word got out, in the thick of a September playoff chase under Joe Girardi. There was no game to interrupt -- the news reached the clubhouse before the September 23 series finale at Rogers Centre, and the club observed a moment of silence on the road before that night's loss to the Blue Jays, 4-0. Players wore a No. 8 patch on their sleeves starting that night and kept wearing it the rest of the season. Berra's number had already been retired since 1972, alongside Bill Dickey's -- the same number, worn by the two men who taught the Yankees what a modern catcher was supposed to look like.

Toronto got the moment of silence. The Bronx got the ceremony that actually mattered. On September 24, the Yankees' first home game since Berra died, four catchers -- Girardi, Brian McCann, Austin Romine, and Gary Sanchez -- carried an 8-shaped floral wreath out to the catcher's box before first pitch (all four of them behind the plate, the position Berra had spent a career turning into an art form). A Navy bugler played "Taps." A Navy vocalist sang the anthem. It wasn't subtle, tying the tribute to Berra's service at Normandy, and it wasn't supposed to be. The Yankees won that night, 3-2, which felt almost beside the point.

What Everyone Said

The tributes came from places you'd expect and a few you wouldn't. Commissioner Rob Manfred called Berra's death the loss of someone whose "character, talent, courage, extraordinary experiences and inimitable way with words made him a universally beloved figure in baseball and beyond" -- pointing specifically to the Navy service and the shadow of DiMaggio and Mantle that Berra had quietly out-produced by the numbers that mattered most. President Obama's statement called him "an American original -- a Hall of Famer and humble veteran; prolific jokester and jovial prophet." It's rare that a ballplayer's death draws a White House statement built on wordplay he'd have appreciated more than most.

Yogi Berra was an American original -- a Hall of Famer and humble veteran; prolific jokester and jovial prophet.

Derek Jeter wrote the tribute that landed hardest, an essay on The Players' Tribune called "The Yogi I Knew." Jeter had grown close to Berra in the years after Berra ended his fourteen-year boycott of the Stadium, and the piece read like two men who'd actually spent time together rather than a captain paying respects to a franchise fixture. Jeter remembered a slump, and Berra's fix for it: try swinging at strikes. He remembered joking that five of Berra's ten rings shouldn't count for some reason or another, and Berra's answer, delivered with a straight face: "If you're having trouble with math, you can come over to my house and count the rings yourself."

Montclair, September 29

The funeral was held the following Tuesday at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Montclair, New Jersey, Berra's home parish for decades -- Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan, presiding, noted that Berra attended Mass there every Sunday, "same pew, same time." The Yankees televised the service live on YES starting at 10 a.m., a decision that told you everything about how the organization measured his place in it. Joe Torre delivered the eulogy and called Berra the team's good-luck charm. "He was always so good, so honest, so human and so real," Torre said. "You didn't have to be a baseball fan to know who Yogi was."

Berra had been cremated. His remains sat by the altar during the Mass, a gold catcher's mitt resting on top, an American flag displayed alongside (Cardinal Dolan didn't need to explain the mitt to anyone in the pews). He was laid to rest afterward at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover -- not far from the museum that carries his name, not far from the town where he'd lived the back half of his life once the Yankees finally let him come home.

What Was Actually Gone

Strip away the ceremony and the statements, and what baseball lost on September 22 was specific: the last of the sport's three most towering mid-century Yankees to die. Mantle went first, in 1995. DiMaggio followed in 1999. Berra outlasted both of them by a wide margin, long enough to watch the reconciliation with George Steinbrenner play out, long enough to see Don Larsen throw the only perfect game in World Series history get replayed on ballpark video boards a thousand times with Berra's leap into Larsen's arms as the closing image, long enough to become, improbably, as famous for a stockpile of half-invented sayings as he was for ten championship rings nobody's ever going to match.

That's the part that got lost a little in the tributes, buried under Yogi-isms and gold catcher's mitts. He caught more winning World Series games than anyone in the sport's history. He struck out twelve times in a season once (in 597 at-bats, a number that still doesn't sound real), which shouldn't be a real sentence about a real hitter. He went to Normandy at nineteen and came home and almost never talked about it. The ninety years added up to something the sportswriters kept reaching for and mostly missing, because Berra himself had already said it better, decades earlier, without meaning to: he'd fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch. On September 22, 2015, the watch finally stopped.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Yogi Berra die?

Berra died in his sleep of natural causes on September 22, 2015, at an assisted-living facility in West Caldwell, New Jersey. He was 90 years old. No specific terminal illness was publicized by his family.

How did the Yankees honor Yogi Berra after his death?

The Yankees held a moment of silence before their September 23, 2015 game in Toronto and began wearing a No. 8 patch on their jersey sleeves for the rest of the season. At their next home game, on September 24, four Yankees catchers -- Joe Girardi, Brian McCann, Austin Romine, and Gary Sanchez -- carried an 8-shaped floral wreath to the catcher's box in a pregame ceremony that included a Navy bugler playing "Taps" and a Navy vocalist singing the national anthem.

Where was Yogi Berra's funeral held, and who spoke?

Berra's funeral was held September 29, 2015, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Montclair, New Jersey -- his home parish -- with Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan presiding. Joe Torre delivered the eulogy, calling Berra the Yankees' "good-luck charm." The service was televised live on the YES Network. Berra was cremated and later laid to rest at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover, New Jersey.

What did other public figures say about Yogi Berra's death?

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred called Berra "a universally beloved figure in baseball and beyond." President Obama's official statement described him as "an American original -- a Hall of Famer and humble veteran; prolific jokester and jovial prophet." Derek Jeter wrote a personal essay for The Players' Tribune, "The Yogi I Knew," recalling their friendship in the years after Berra returned to the organization.