Today in Comics History, May 12: Happy birthday, Yogi Berra!

Born on this day in 1925: Yogi Berra, champion baseball player and manager, malapropist, and cartoon bear.


from Yogi Berra one-shot (Fawcett, 1951), script by Charles Dexter, pencils and inks by Kurt Schaffenberger



This one's kind of a personal favorite for me. Tho' I've never followed baseball too closely, my dad was a lifelong Yankees fan, so of course I grew up known who Yogi Berra was. And he was one of my dad's favorite players.


"Yogi Berra" from Real Life Comics #55 (Pines, January 1951), creators uncredited and unknown
Even if you only read comic books, you would know who Yogi was, because he was a consummate pitchman. Here he is urging us to eat our Wheaties, Breakfast of Champions:



Wheaties advertisements from (top) DC comics cover-dated July 1952;
(bottom) Dell comics cover-dated September 1953
Yogi urges us to sell soothing, relieving Cloverine Salve to out unsuspecting grandpa and grandma in order to win cheap junk:



Cloverine Salve advertisements in (top) DC comics cover-dated June 1957;
(bottom) Farrell Comics cover-dated September 1957
Berra also was the spokesyogi for Shelby Bicycles. It surprises me that with my dad as huge a Yogi fan as he was, that I actually wound up with a Schwinn.




advertisements for Shelby Bicycle from (top) Archie Comics cover-dated January 1954;
(middle) Archie Comics cover-dated August 1954;
(bottom) Quality Comics cover-dated August 1955
THEY USE TO CALL HIM FATSO. Not when he had a bat in his hand, they didn't.



advertisement for The National Sports Council from DC comics cover-dated August 1959
Only a few years ago I discovered there was an actual authorized Yogi Berra comic book, one in a series of baseball hero comics from Fawcett (publishers of Captain Marvel).



cover and inside front cover from Yogi Berra one-shot
I wish I'd had this comic book when my dad was still alive so we could talk about it. He may have even owned it at some point: he collected comics when younger. He wasn't a kid when this came out ('51), but if he saw it on the newsstand, he probably woulda got it.





from Yogi Berra one-shot; script by Charles Dexter, pencils and inks by Kurt Schaffenberger
Say, did you know Yogi was a comic book fan as well? I didn't before this! (Note that all the books on the rack in that first panel are Fawcett comics!)



PS: please do not try to involve Yogi in race-baiting, comic book.



from "Jackie Robinson's First World Series" in Jackie Robinson #2 (Fawcett, July 1950), script by Charles Dexter, pencils and inks by Clem Weisbecker
I really do love that Fawcett Yogi Berra comic book and reading it reminds me of my dad. We didn't share an awful lot of interests but sometimes I wish I'd learned more about baseball from him.




from Yogi Berra one-shot
Part of Dad's love for Yogi was that he, like us, were Italian-American. (Yes, I am Italian beef.) Dad grew up as the first son of immigrants, and he had a great love and wonder for a ballplayer that came up from the same type of family he did.


My dad didn't have the same kind of humor I do, but we both loved the "Yogisms" Berra was well-known for. I do know one of his favorite presents that I ever gave him was a book by Yogi about his trademark malapropisms.



from (top) Fantastic Four #331 (Marvel, October 1989), script by Steve Englehart (as John Harkness), pencils by Rich Buckler, inks by Romeo Tanghal, colors by George Roussos, letters by Bill Oakley
Amazing Spider-Man #500 (Marvel, December 2003), script by J. Michael Straczynski, pencils by John Romita Jr., inks by Scott Hanna, colors by Avalon Studios, letters by Randolph Gentile
So happy birthday to you, Yogi. I didn't know you at the time, but I wish I'd known more about you, and I miss you.



from Yogi Berra one-shot
I miss you too, Pop.