Yoda Berra

Yogi finally looks old to me.  Like Yoda we met him when he was old yet we viewed him as a timeless force: a bridge from our time to a more golden past. Suddenly-we see him as an old man.  But this is Yogi, and the most quoted man on earth might say:   I was older when I was younger too! 
Yogi Berra was always old in baseball wisdom, one of the old wise heads in the game: as player, coach, manager- an evolving icon.  In my lifetime he was always around in some way.  As kids growing up, someone I knew had always seen him 'the other day' in downtown Ridgewood, N.J. or heard him speak somewhere for a good cause. To baseball fans of the generation before me, he was always the one grinning at the end of the World Series- especially when the 'World' was an Island  in Hudson Bay between the Hudson River,  the East River, and a mouth of the Atlantic Ocean.  Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle,  Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays all went to baseball battle with or against Yogi.

I imagine his occasional flashbacks to his playing days  would be  Hall of Fame dreamlets...perchance... Jackie Robinson would be called out on the steal of home,
Don Larsen would always be perfect, and
Yogi would flash ten championship rings, smile a winner's smile.
Yogi and baseball had a certain and wonderful chemistry, a profound sense of joy.  He seemed to glow as if every baseball memory were fresh and new.  In his recollections,  baseball was exciting  and amazing.  Now, it is bittersweet, like autumn and the season's end.  Yogi finally looks old, and the baseball diamond is a bit dimmer.