![]() Nor are scholarly communications unsusceptible to misattribution born of an urge to mythologize some of its participants. Out of respect for the delicate sensibilities of the men who read this blog, I will forbear quoting any of Snyder’s more famous and deliciously malicious remarks. Comments attributed to him seemed like they had dropped from the lips of Attila or Ariel Sharon (did Sharon really say that “when the lion lies down with the lamb, I want to be the lion”?). Indeed, many people, who never even met the man, imitated his bizarre booming baritone. ![]() I would participate in meetings with Snyder and a few weeks later hear versions of what he allegedly had said, all hyped up for dramatic intensity and a dose of (ironic?) cruelty. Could he really have said that “anybody who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined”? Closer to home in the publishing industry, though not nearly as well known any more, are the zingers attributed to Dick Snyder, the former CEO of Simon & Schuster. My favorite example of the genre are the witticisms attributed to Samuel Goldwyn. This is a role he shared with many others. Yogi, in other words, was not just a historical personage but also a mythic figure on whom we project so many of our own wishes and wisecracks. We know he never said that “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” apparently a reference to Wagner (picture Yogi, sitting in the eighth row of a performance of The Ring, flipping through comic books as he awaits the fat lady), but he may have said that “it ain’t over until it’s over,” which is sensible enough. This makes one of his most famous “Yogisms”–”I never said most of the things I said”–iconic. Joe Esposito: Inasmuch as the Kitchen is a venue for scholarly communications, we should acknowledge that not everything attributed to Lawrence “Yogi” Berra was in fact uttered by him. This month we asked the Chefs: What is your favorite Yogi Berra quote and why? As the New York Times describes him he was “…one of baseball’s greatest catchers and characters, who as a player was a mainstay of 10 Yankees championship teams and as a manager led both the Yankees and the Mets to the World Series - but who may be more widely known as an ungainly but lovable cultural figure, inspiring a cartoon character and issuing a seemingly limitless supply of unwittingly witty epigrams…” On September 23rd this year, Yogi Berra died at 90 years old.
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