Yogi Berra-isms don’t lack for insight — they’re just sloppily worded. What follows are the originals with HE improvements & explanations.
1. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it“. HE version: Life will sometimes say “that chapter’s over and now it’s time for a new one…up your game by trying something a little different. Something smarter, nervier. Be bold and go for it.”
2. “You can observe a lot by just watching.” HE version: “You’ll never learn anything by listening to yourself talk. Try sitting silently…watch and listen, take it all in…you might learn something.”
3. “It ain’t over till it’s over.” HE version: Ditto.
4. “It’s like deja vu all over again.” HE version: Exactly.
5. “No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” HE version: The cool people don’t go there any more — too much riff-raff, too many tourists and families.
6. “Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.” HE version: Baseball is a mind game…a feel-the-spirit, go-with-the-flow thing that’s half Zen submission and half exertion and perspiration. Or 90% Zen and 10% exertion. Or vice versa. What do I know?
7. “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.” HE version: Precisely.
8. “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” HE version: If you don’t attend the funerals of friends and co-workers when they pass on, their living-dead zombie corpses won’t dig their way out of the soil and attend your funeral so think twice and be considerate.
9. “We made too many wrong mistakes.” HE version: Sometimes mistakes can be good, by which I mean lucky or even glorious. Or at the very least instructive.
10. “You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.” HE version: Ditto.
11. “You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.” HE version: Yup.
12. “Slump? I ain’t in no slump…I just ain’t hitting.” HE version: I don’t believe in slumps. Slumps are spooky. Don’t even say the word.
13. “The future ain’t what it used to be.” HE version: When we were younger and more optimistic we all felt better about what seemed to be coming around the corner. Now we’re feeling only dread and foreboding. Being older does that to you.
14. “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.” HE version: I thought this was a Sam Goldwynism — “if people don’t want to see the movie, you can’t stop ’em.”
15. “You’ve gotta be careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” HE version: Exactly.
16. “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.” HE version: Perhaps the greatest Yogi-ism ever spoken.
17. “You don’t have to swing hard to hit a home run. If you got the timing, it’ll go.” HE version: You definitely have to swing hard to hit a homer, but the main thing is the swing and the timing. If you hit it just right, it’ll travel.
18. “You can’t think and hit at the same time.” HE version: Pretty much like writing. You’ve gotta just say it and fix it up with a second pass. If you over-think it while writing, it won’t come.