Yogi Berra was a puckhead, too

Yogi Berra died at age 90 on Tuesday, and the tributes and outpourings of appreciation for his life started immediately after. He was an icon in baseball and in New York sports, and you can say with confidence that there will never be another Yogi Berra, in the sense that no single athlete could combine the observational humor and grumbly charisma of the New York Yankees great. 

Along with all that: He was also a hockey fan.

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A New Jersey Devils fan, in fact, for decades. And I wanted to take this moment to point to an editorial Berra wrote for the New York Times in June 2003 about the team, which had just captured its third Stanley Cup.

It’s called “Pride Of The Devils,” and as a fan of a team that never seemed to get its due despite the players’ hands being weighed down by championship rings, it resonated.

From Yogi Berra, on the Devils:

When people ask me what I think of the New Jersey Devils, I always say, I think they’re pretty darn good. I don’t think it matters that they play in a so-so arena near a highway. Or that they don’t have big-name stars and get knocked for being in New Jersey. So they can’t decide on a good place for a parade — so what? How many teams are raising another Stanley Cup?

… Maybe a few more people should appreciate the Devils. The team gets criticized just for being good. A former Rangers coach said they’re just a bunch of interchangeable parts. Well, I’ve always been a Rangers fan, too, and I wish they had more interchangeable parts. Good teams always have them — guys who play for the team, not for themselves, and the Devils typify teamwork at its best.

They remind me of the Yankees teams I played on during the late 1940’s through the early 60’s. We were a team of interchangeable parts.

It goes on to make several connections between some of the greatest Yankee teams of all-time and the Devils team that won three Cups.

I remember reading it at the time and having it mean a lot to me. Not only because this was a New York area celebrity outing himself as a Devils fan whose name wasn’t Joe Piscopo, but because it was so defiant in defending how this team was built and the style it played.

Connecting the Mickey Mouse team across the river with the Pride of the Yankees? Sweet, sweet blasphemy.

Give it a read. RIP, Yogi.

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