Yogi Berra, One of Baseball's Great Characters, Dead at 90

Hall of Fame catcher  Yogi Berra has died at 90. The 10-time World Series champion and New York Yankees legend was one of the greatest characters in baseball history, known as much for his Yogisms as his winning on-field play.

Berra hit .285 with 358 home runs in his 19-year playing career. He went on to manage both the Yankees and Mets and is one of only six managers to lead teams from both leagues to the World Series.

His death comes 69 years to the day of his major league debut.

The New York Times eloquently summed up Berra’s essence:

"In 1949, early in Berra’s Yankee career, his manager assessed him this way in an interview in The Sporting News: “Mr. Berra,” Casey Stengel said, “is a very strange fellow of very remarkable abilities.” And so he was, and so he proved to be. Universally known simply as Yogi, probably the second most recognizable nickname in sports — even Yogi was not the Babe — Berra was not exactly an unlikely hero, but he was often portrayed as one: an All-Star for 15 consecutive seasons whose skills were routinely underestimated; a well-built, appealingly open-faced man whose physical appearance was often belittled; and a prolific winner — not to mention a successful leader — whose intellect was a target of humor if not outright derision. That he triumphed on the diamond again and again in spite of his perceived shortcomings was certainly a source of his popularity. So was the delight with which his famous, if not always documentable, pronouncements, somehow both nonsensical and sagacious, were received."

More than anything, he was one of a kind. He was beloved by Yankees fans and others alike.

Baseball may see a greater winner in the future. It won’t, however, see anyone like Berra again.