A piece of my youth passed Wednesday when I learned of the death of New York Yankee great Yogi Berra.

For those who were born after 1970, that name may draw a question of “Who?” but the news of his passing for me marks the end of an era when sports figures were looked upon as heroes and baseball was still known as the national pastime.

Yogi Berra played baseball from 1946 until 1964, when he became the Yankees’ manager.

In 1972, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He played during a period when the game was played on real grass, the bats were made of wood, pitchers batted and anyone who mentioned the concept of a designated hitter would have been laughed from the game.

Personally, I think the advent of the designated hitter and the aluminum baseball bat marked the decline of our civilization.

Yogi was one of a great line of Yankee catchers to wear the “tools of ignorance” behind the plate and occasionally played the outfield on days when Elston Howard would go behind the plate. During his time as a Yankee, the team won 10 world championships.

Yankees like Yogi and teammates Whitey Ford and outfielder Mickey Mantle were sport deities.

Their images were among the most prized baseball cards and zealously protected.

Yogi was also known for his ability to produce unique bits of wisdom the press dubbed “Yogisms,” sayings that sounded outrageous but had a common sense logic to them, like “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” “It’s deju vu all over again,” and “When you come to a fork in the road … take it.”

In the ’50s and ’60s, when television was limited to three networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — sports programs, with the exception of boxing, the World Series and the New Year’s Day bowl games (Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Gator, Sun and Orange), were broadcast on the weekend and the names of baseball players became as familiar as your brother’s or sister’s.

On Saturday afternoons we’d gather around the TV for the game of the week and listen to Dizzy Dean and PeeWee Reese or Lindsey Nelson call the game. Dizzy Dean would occasionally break out in song with the “Wabash Cannonball” during his telecasts.

Media coverage back then was lot different. There was a tendency not to report an athlete’s, or a politician’s, personal problems, unless something happened in public and could not be ignored. But then, there was also a lack of prima donnas in the sports world at the time — a few, but not many.

As far as I can remember, the only thing I read about Yogi involved his performance behind the plate and as manager for the Yankees and later the New York Mets. I guess that’s why reading about his death made me pause, because he was a man who was among the best there was at his position, he let his skills and not his mouth do the talking and was, as far as I can ever remember, a great human being.

•

John Surratt is a staff writer at The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at john.surratt@vicksburgpost.com.