Bookshelf review — For your convenience: Driving Mr. Yogi

May 8, 2012

[Note: My spring baseball roundup appears on Bookreporter.com and is reposted here as individual reviews for your convenience.]

Harvey Araton tells a touching story in Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift.

Reminiscent of David Halberstam’s 2002 The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship, Driving Mr. Yogi is a bit more upbeat as it focuses on the relationship between Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra — one of the last members of those awesome Yankee teams of the late 1940s through the early1960s — and Ron Guidry, a star pitcher of a subsequent generation.

Each spring training for the past several years (since Berra returned to the Yankee fold after a reconciliation with the late George Steinbrenner, which is covered in great detail by Araton, a sports columnist for The New York Times), Guidry has been meeting the iconic catcher at the Tampa airport, serving as his companion and driver during Spring Training. The affection between the two is genuine and mutual, almost like father and son.

In between the contemporary story, we get a sense of what each man meant to his team, both coming from relatively humble origins — Berra in Missouri, Guidry in Louisiana — to find success in the big city

The book does take on an emotional tone as Berra, who turns 87 this month, becomes a bit more dependent on Guidry for support. The reader wonders how many more trips to Tampa will be made. Still, Driving Mr. Yogi is a sweet tale harkening back to a kinder, gentler society where elders are cherished for their wisdom and accomplishments.

 

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