Applying a Dozen Yogi-isms to Business, Leadership, and Organizational Culture

Issue #202

The following is an article that I posted earlier today to LinkedIn. Since it is a crossover between my work as a researcher in human resources, and my love of baseball, I figured I’d cross-post it to my readers here at Now Taking the Field.

For a baseball fanatic like me, watching the 2024 World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers has been great fun so far.  While it can be nice to have an underdog, small-market surprise team take on a big-spending elite squad, this year’s matchup is equally compelling:

• The Dodgers (98-64) had the best regular season record in the National League, while the Yankees (94-68) had the best record in the American League.

• This is the 12th championship matchup of these two storied franchises—the most of any two opponents (Yankees vs. Giants is second at seven.)

• That said, they haven’t faced each other in the World Series since 1981. (The Dodgers won that year in six games.)

• The 2024 Dodgers and Yankees have several of the biggest stars in the game today, including Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and others for LA; and Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole, and others for NY.

• The audience watching is broad since the two cities are on each US coast (rather than clustered on one coast or both coming from the Midwest). And the Dodgers have not one Japanese-born star in Ohtani, but a second in starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, driving greater interest in the series in the baseball-loving nation of Japan too.

With the Yankees being in the World Series this year, there are of course many mentions of great players from their past. After all, the franchise has been to the World Series now 41 times since 1903, winning 27 times (so far) – 16 more than the second-best team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

As a result of their success, Yankees players naturally dominate the all-time World Series statistical leaderboards. Which player holds the record for most World Series games played? Catcher Yogi Berra, with 75 – ten more than his long-time teammate Mickey Mantle. He also leads in World Series at-bats, plate appearances, and hits, where his 71 is far ahead of Mantle’s 59.

Overall, Berra—whose full name was Lawrence Peter Berra—was a key star on the dominant Yankees clubs of the late 1940s through the early 1960s. He ...