{"id":18918,"date":"2015-09-23T17:34:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T17:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2015\/09\/23\/yogi-at-war-before-pinstripes-berra-donned-navy-blue\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:12:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:12:01","slug":"yogi-at-war-before-pinstripes-berra-donned-navy-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/off-duty\/military-sports\/2015\/09\/23\/yogi-at-war-before-pinstripes-berra-donned-navy-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"Yogi at war: Before pinstripes, Berra donned Navy blue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before Berra, who died Tuesday of natural causes at age 90 in his New Jersey home, became a linchpin in the New York Yankee legacy, he left the baseball diamond to serve in\u00a0the Navy during World War II. It was his first choice, but not by much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I almost joined the Army after I had enlisted in the Navy,” Berra said during a 2010 event at Nationals Park<\/a> in Washington, D.C., as part of a veterans conference. “The Army would have allowed me to spend a couple of weeks back home before I shipped out. But, off I went to the Navy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He headed\u00a0to\u00a0Europe aboard the Buckley, a\u00a0Coast Guard attack transport: Both the ship and the ballplayer had been pressed into naval\u00a0service in the lead-up to the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied\u00a0France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Berra, apparently, was scolded for playing out of position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I kept coming up top to look around, and they kept telling me to get back down there or I’d get hit,” he said at the 2010 event. “I just wanted to see what was going on. I liked it\u00a0more up\u00a0there!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A 1950s-era Treasury Department poster used Yogi Berra’s likeness to promote the purchase of savings bonds<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: National Archives<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His play “impressed Giants manager Mel Ott<\/a> so much that he called the Yankees and offered $50,000 for Berra,” according to the SABR book. Yankee president Larry MacPhail<\/a> said no, but admitted later, according to the book, that he didn’t know who Berra was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berra wouldn’t be playing in anonymity for long. He was in the majors with the Yankees at the tail end of the 1946 season, earned his first of 10 World Series rings as a Yankee player in 1947, and was voted into his first All-Star Game in 1948. He played in his last in 1962, 10 years before his induction into the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generations of baseball fans would know Berra not for his on-field successes, but for his enduring place at or near the top of history’s most quotable athletes. The military is no exception:<\/p>\n\n\n\n