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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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YOGI

Jon Pessah

A Life Behind the Mask

YOGI is the definitive biography of Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees icon, winner of 13 World Series championships, and the most-quoted player in baseball history.
Lawrence "Yogi" Berra's immigrant father told him he would never become a major league ballplayer. Branch Rickey told him that too-right to Berra's face, in fact. Even the lowly St. Louis Browns of his youth said he'd never make it in the big leagues.

Yet baseball was his lifeblood. It was the only thing he ever cared about. Heck, it was the only thing he ever thought about. Berra couldn't allow a constant stream of ridicule about his appearance, taunts about his speech, and scorn about his perceived lack of intelligence to keep him from becoming one of the best to ever play the game-at a position requiring the very skills he was told he did not have.

Drawing on more than one hundred interviews and four years of reporting, Jon Pessah delivers a transformational portrait of how Berra handled his hard-earned success-on and off the playing field-as well as his failures; how the man who insisted "I really didn't say everything I said!" nonetheless shaped decades of America's culture; and how Berra's humility and grace redefined what it truly means to be a star.

Overshadowed on the field by Joe DiMaggio early in his career and later by a youthful Mickey Mantle, Berra emerges as not only the best loved Yankee but one of the most appealingly simple, innately complex, and universally admired men in all of America.

Jon Pessah is The New York Times bestselling author of The Game, a critically-acclaimed examination of the power brokers who built the major league baseball into a multi-billion dollar business. A founding editor of ESPN the Magazine, where he ran the investigative team, Pessah has also managed the sports departments for Newsday and the Hartford Courant.
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Published 2020-04-14 by Little Brown

Comments

Yogi Berra is the greatest winner of all time and one of baseball's most lovable, fascinating, and iconic players. Jon Pessah brings Yogi to life, from his childhood, to his brilliance as a Yankee, to his importance as a cultural icon. I thought I understood Yogi's life and career, but I learned something new on virtually every page.

Yogi is a masterwork... Jon Pessah expertly reveals the powerful influence of one of baseball's, and perhaps all of America's, most golden-hearted and well-beloved characters.

Jon Pessah's meticulously sourced Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask immediately becomes essential for anyone interested in the life of a true American icon. The book is a serious and thoughtful treatment of a life that was a good deal more complex than most people realize. Throughout, it's Yogi's warmth, love of his family and loyalty to them and his friends that drive this narrative. Yogi Berra was a beautiful person with a big heart, and this biography more than does him justice. Simply put-a great read for any baseball fan.

Yogi Berra is a poster boy for the greatest generation; both a man of great character and a ... great character! His journey from "The Hill" to Normandy to Yankee hero to American icon is inspiring. Thank you Jon Pessah for making this book necessary!

A vigorous biography of the New York Yankees legend... Yogi emerges as a man who was more thoughtful than many give him credit for... A welcome life of the Yankees icon and worthwhile reading for any baseball buff.

If Yogi Berra wasn't a true story, nobody could make him up. Or maybe a brilliant storyteller like Jon Pessah could! But thanks to Yogi, Pessah doesn't have to.

The funny anecdotes and exciting play-by-play from baseball's golden age will keep Berra's legions of fans happy.

Jon Pessah is not just an author who recounts history. He is a talented storyteller, as his critically acclaimed The Game illustrated. Now he has used his passion and prose to give us Yogi, a rich and poignant portrait of one of America's most beloved sports icons.