Right up there with Yogi

As they bring down the curtain this weekend on Yankee Stadium, also known as The House That Ruth Built, and aka to me as The Place Where A Guy I Used To Work With Got Hosed Out Of Sixty Bucks In A Game Of Three Card Monte, it's time to look back on the storied career of stumpy Yankee catcher Yogi Berra. I'll leave the accounts of his baseball career to the Gotham scribes and hard-bitten baseball beat reporters, preferring to remember Yogi for his outstanding devotion to Zen-like kōans, which are "statements in the history and lore of Zen Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet may be accessible to intuition. (thanks to Wiki P.) In other words, it's stuff that he said that seems at first blush to make no sense, but somehow, you understand it. The latest one I heard was from an Old-Timer's Day at the Stadium. Yogi was on the field with the other retired ballplayers, and the video display showed venerated Yankees who had gone on to the Big Ballgame in the Sky. Yogi's comment? "I hope I don't live long enough to see myself up there."

A few more?

• "This is like deja vu all over again."

• "You can observe a lot just by watching."

• "He must have made that before he died." -- Referring to a Steve McQueen movie.

• "I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early."

• "If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."

• "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him."

• "Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical."

• "It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much."

• "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."

• "It gets late early out there." -- Referring to the bad sun conditions in left field at the stadium

• "Do you mean now?" -- When asked for the time.

• "I take a two hour nap, from one o'clock to four."
• "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."
• "Yeah, but we're making great time!" -- In reply to "Hey Yogi, I think we're lost."

• "If the fans don't come out to the ball park, you can't stop them."

• "Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel."

• "It's never happened in the World Series competition, and it still hasn't."

• "I'd say he's done more than that." -- When asked if first baseman Don Mattingly had exceeded expectations for the current season.

• "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours."

• "I didn't really say everything I said."

To which I humbly add something from Peggy, in a discussion of the location of a certain WalMart SuperStore:

• "I knew where that WalMart was; I just didn't think it was there."