If you were born in the past half century, you’re likely more familiar with the late Yogi Berra as a cultural icon than as a ballplayer. In the late innings of his life, the man born Lorenzo Pietro Berra was less a former catcher and more a pitchman, hawking everything from beer to Aflac, while his lovable persona and peculiar turns of phrase endeared him to a broader swath of the public than simply those interested in sports. Yet as Sean Mullin’s glowing tribute to the New York Yankee legend articulates, the myth grew bigger than the man at times, and it’s revealed by an ad writer that some of the Yogi-isms weren’t even his own words. Brimming with stories from family members and a host of celebrities and other notables, It Ain’t Over, then, aims to separate the man from the myth, but in the process it also builds Berra up to mythic proportions.
Berra’s on-field achievements can’t be understated. Ten world championships. Three-time league MVP. Catching the only perfect game in World Series history. As the film points out, his impact on Yankees history, and baseball as a whole, can scarcely be matched. He bridged the Joe DiMaggio era with that of Mickey Mantle, and after his playing career ended, he even went on to manage both the Yankees and the crosstown Mets to pennants. In short, as one talking head puts it, the World Series seemed to follow him around.
Remarkably, such a path to baseball glory wound through the killing fields of World War II. Berra served on a rocket boat on D-Day, many of his fellow sailors cut down around him. When the beaches of Normandy were secured by the following day, Berra was tasked with fishing bloated bodies out of the surf. Compared to that “baseball’s easy,” he’s reported to have said.
The film spends ample time on his upbringing in St. Louis as the child of Italian immigrants, but it doesn’t belabor this origin. We hear of his early affinity for baseball, and later of his cute romance with his eventual wife, Carmen, but at least these earlier portions of the film avoid striking an overly maudlin tone. There’s baseball to get to, after all, and that stretch of the documentary, along with plenty of archival footage, is where It Ain’t Over really shines. We hear how, to many, the short, stocky, not particularly handsome Berra didn’t “look like a Yankee,” and was cast as clownish in the papers. Nevertheless, his glove and his bat won fans over; in one season, he incredibly hit 28 home runs against only 12 strikeouts the entire year. In addition to catching Don Larsen’s perfect game, after which he jumped into the pitcher’s arms in a now iconic moment, he was on the wrong end of a close play at the plate when Jackie Robinson famously stole home in the 1955 World Series—Berra would go to his grave insisting he’d tagged the barrier-breaking Dodger out.
Among the many interviewees gushing about Berra’s on-field achievements there are latter-day Yankees royalty (Mattingly, Jeter, Rivera), a trio of managerial Joes (Torre, Maddon, Girardi), broadcasters (Scully, Costas) and superfans (Billy Crystal). Meanwhile, his off-field presence as a loving family man is highlighted by family members including his granddaughter Lindsay and three sons, Larry, Tim and Dale—the latter of which spent 10 years in the majors himself and was managed by Berra in his second stint as the Yankees skipper. Berra’s unceremonious ouster by George Steinbrenner only 16 games into his second season at the helm weaves a little drama into what is otherwise mostly a tale of a simple, lovable man and ballplayer achieving success and living well.
In fact, more conflict would’ve strengthened the documentary. Even though there are moments where it’s clear Berra had an axe to grind, the film leaves some stones unturned. His feud with Steinbrenner, to the point Berra refused for years to set foot in Yankee Stadium so long as the team remained in the hands of the polarizing owner, is played as just another lovable quirk. Though one of his sons mentions you didn’t want to see Berra angry, the film doesn’t dig very deeply into the matter and instead celebrates the eventual reconciliation and Berra’s return to the Yankee fold. It’s in the latter third that the film veers from mere hagiography to outright cloying tribute. The fact his cartoonish public persona, which he often embraced, may have inspired Hanna-Barbera’s bumbling Yogi Bear character—to the point that Berra sued for defamation—could’ve offered another insightful angle into a man who, despite is broad affability, apparently was inclined to carry a chip on his shoulder.
Instead, Mullin mostly only has room for the good stuff. The director goes to great lengths to reinforce the perception of the malapropism-prone Berra as a relatable everyman, and how that’s what made him so remarkable. The film succeeds most in shining a light on a storied baseball career that often gets overlooked by the man’s subsequent cultural status. In the end, 90% of the film is half effective.
Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
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