When asked what gift he wanted for his birthday, the yogi replied: " I don't want any gifts, only presence."

Was Yogi a yogi?
(A new limmerick about Yogi Berra for baseball lovers.)


I once met a Yankee named Berra.
Who crouched at home so close to terra.
With mitt, pads and mask
Through nine innings his task
Was to get through each game with no erra!

He called fastballs and sliders galore
Sinkers, curveballs and changeups and more
Never apt to attack
The old ump at his back
When a full count progressed to ball four!

As each batter would come to the plate
A new joke he would offer as bait
To a new fever pitch
Their ire seemed to bewitch
Every swing to a fastball'd be late!

As a batter he had a sixth sense
He was cool, calm collected, not tense
With his eagle eyesight
His hits often took flight
To the outfield seats, over the fence!

Yes, there's something about number eight
That it seems does embody what's great
A true yogi was he
When he crouched on his knee
For his humor was always first rate!

It ain't over 'til it's over!
Be a true yogi today!

Yoga postures have names. Yogi Berra was really good at Bat Swing and Crouch as the delightful limerick suggests.

"Berra hasn't followed the traditional regimen of a person who gives his life over to yoga. He has never attempted to assume the Lotus, the Plough, the Fish or the touching-the-top-of-your-head-with-the-soles-of-your-feet position. In his playing days, it's true, he so mastered the Bat Swing and the Crouch that he's now in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And this spring, in the Yankees' new flexibility program, he stretched, bent and folded himself pretty well for a man of 58. But when he's asked whether he knows the body toning postures of yoga, he says, 'Nahhh. A couple of people wrote me, 'What exercises do you give?' thinking I was a, you know.... Ahhh, I don't do no exercises.'

In traditional yoga, the practice of meditation is of central importance. But Berra says, 'Guys talk about doing this meditating when they go up to the plate. If I'd done that I'd've been worse. I went up there thinking about something else.' "

The above quotation comes from Sports Illustrated. When Yogi Berra became manager of the New York Yankees, the magazine (April 2, 1984) wrote an article asking if he was a true yogi. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1121965/index.htm