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" I never go to the track. I don&amp;#039;t like horses. They take too long.  Ask questions. Maybe it might lead to somethin&amp;#039;. I&amp;#039;m lucky. Usually you&amp;#039;re dead to get your own museum, but I&amp;#039;m still alive to see mine. New York is always the place to play.  If I didn&amp;#039;t make it in baseball, I won&amp;#039;t have made it workin&amp;#039;. I didn&amp;#039;t like to work.  I was the baby. My oldest brother was the best ballplayer of all of us. You ask anybody on the Hill in St. Louis -- he was the best ballplayer on the Hill. My brother Lefty, he could hit. Man, he could hit.  I told my dad, &amp;quot;Dad, you realize if your other two sons had played ball, you&amp;#039;da been a millionaire.&amp;quot; He said, &amp;quot;Blame your mother.&amp;quot;  I was playin&amp;#039; American Legion Baseball. Bobby Hofman, used to play with the Giants, we were on the same team. We never had dugouts. We&amp;#039;re sittin&amp;#039; on the ground. I always had my legs crossed and my arms folded. Bobby said, &amp;quot;You look like a yogi.&amp;quot; And it stuck.  You don&amp;#039;t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it&amp;#039;ll go. I don&amp;#039;t blame the players today for the money. I blame the owners. They started it. They wanna give it to &amp;#039;em? More power to &amp;#039;em. It don&amp;#039;t have to be a perfect pitch. If you see it good, swing at it. But if you can&amp;#039;t hit it, lay off it.  My wife, she calls me Yogi. If she calls me Lawrence, I know she&amp;#039;s mad at me. The Hill was a good neighborhood. We all knew when to come in. They had a 4:30 whistle. We were playin&amp;#039; outside on the street, that 4:30 whistle blow, everybody drops everything, go and get that pail, get that can of beer for your father, put it on that table. They come home from work, they&amp;#039;re thirsty. For Christmas, I asked my dad, &amp;quot;I want a baseball bat, a glove, and a ball.&amp;quot; He said, &amp;quot;Which one of the three do ya want?&amp;quot;  I had two pitchers go and hit me &amp;#039;cause I hit &amp;#039;em good. Gary Bell said, &amp;quot;You hit me too good, dago.&amp;quot; He just called me that\u2014I didn&amp;#039;t mind. It wasn&amp;#039;t mean. I know he didn&amp;#039;t mean that. He was a good buddy of mine is why. He wouldn&amp;#039;t throw at my head\u2014you know, in the ass. Same way with Dizzy Trout. He said, &amp;quot;You hit me too good. I gotta get ya.&amp;quot; Nothin&amp;#039; regular. Just for the heck of it. When I caught, I&amp;#039;d look at the hitter, the way he strides. He strides in, then ya get the ball inside to him. I watched &amp;#039;em pretty good.  Joe was the best player I ever saw. He didn&amp;#039;t do anything wrong. DiMaggio I never saw slide. He just was there. It&amp;#039;s funny\u2014I never seen him slide for a ball. He run the bases good. Every damn thing. Never seen him without a tie. Always a dark-blue suit. Sharp. He come from the sticks, too. A lot of guys go, &amp;quot;Hey Yog, say a Yogi-ism.&amp;quot; I tell &amp;#039;em, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t know any.&amp;quot; They want me to make one up. I don&amp;#039;t make &amp;#039;em up. I don&amp;#039;t even know when I say it. They&amp;#039;re the truth. And it is the truth. I don&amp;#039;t know. Casey used to say, &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re on first base and you go back to the bag, step on the guy&amp;#039;s foot. Let him know you&amp;#039;re there.&amp;quot;  I get a kick out of some guys. They look at ya and say, &amp;quot;You look like Yogi Berra.&amp;quot; I say, &amp;quot;Yeah, a lotta people tell me that.&amp;quot; Then they say, &amp;quot;Ya can&amp;#039;t be. Can&amp;#039;t be.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s real funny. New York, they all know me, but when ya go in the airports, different towns, they look at ya\u2014&amp;quot;You remind me of Yogi Berra.&amp;quot; I never figured I&amp;#039;d go into the Hall of Fame. A kid from the Hill. This interview was published in the January 2002 issue. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/interviews/a2019/esq0102-jan-berra/>