The final time they spoke, George Steinbrenner had one question for Yogi Berra.
“How’s my girlfriend?” the Yankees owner joked, referring to Berra’s wife, Carmen.
That was on July 4, when Berra called Steinbrenner on his 80th birthday.
“He said he felt good,” Berra, 85, said. That’s what left Berra stunned and saddened at the news of Steinbrenner’s death yesterday.
“He was a wonderful man,” Berra said.
The two men first met in the mid-1970s when Steinbrenner took over the Yankees. Berra coached and managed under Steinbrenner, and the two famously feuded for 14 years after Steinbrenner fired Berra 16 games into the 1985 season.
Berra was sitting in the museum that bears his name in Little Falls, N.J., yesterday, next to Carmen and his son, Dale. It was 11 years ago at the museum when Steinbrenner and Berra repaired their relationship and Steinbrenner apologized for firing Berra the way he did — by sending general manager Clyde King to deliver the news rather than doing it himself.
“He was tough,” Berra said. “I got mad at him when I got fired. I didn’t like the way I got fired. Usually the owner calls you up.”
Berra, who managed the Yankees in 1964, nine years before Steinbrenner bought the team, first worked under The Boss as one of Billy Martin’s coaches. He began his second stint as Yankees manager in 1984 and then lasted just 16 games in 1985.
Carmen Berra saw the softer side of Steinbrenner during the 1977 World Series, when he sat with the Yankees wives at Dodger Stadium. He bought all of them cotton candy, and she thought he could not be as bad as his reputation made him out to be.
Yogi Berra last saw Steinbrenner on Opening Day this year at Yankee Stadium. Berra said Steinbrenner looked all right. When the two spoke last week, Steinbrenner complained about being in a wheelchair, but also said he hoped to see Berra this Saturday at Old-Timers’ Day.
“I was just hoping he’d be there,” Berra said, “It will be a sad day, I’ll tell you that.”
As for Steinbrenner’s chances of getting into the Hall of Fame, Berra said, “He’ll be there.”