Shakespeare and Yogi:''Our Similarities Are Different!''

William Shakespeare: ”You Sirrah that ball was fair!”
Yogi Berra: ”That ball was foul!”
William Shakespeare: ”So Fair a Foul I Have Not Seen!”
Thus, a foul ball of fate that henceforth became commonly known as ” the long and testy relationship between one Bard of Avon and the Batsman of Broadway.”

As baseball broadcaster Hamlet would immortaly cry,” A hit, a very palpable hit” to which Yogi Berra countered,”Ninety percent of this game is half mental”. Could a twist of karmic fate have Yogi Berra, the most quoted living American, be the reincarnation of England’s national poet? To quote Yogi,”Its deja vu all over again”.

Doubt remains as to the true cause of Shakespeare’s death.  The bard and baseball were always at odds. One theory is Shakespeare and literary temmate Ben Jonson cursing the wenches and imbibing Tudorian doses of Macbethian libations, time travelling into post war America, and Shakespeare inhabiting the charnel form of  Yogi Berra. The secondary effects were  unpredictable and the Stratford Sonnet became an iconic Yankee. “Oh hateful error”

”The Future Ain’t what it used to be” said Yogi and thereafter the national pastime became inflected with Shakespearean idioms.To be sure, one with more emphasis on ”Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair”. The strength of the witches’ brew resulted in the Bard’s prose flowing towards malapropism with the Queen’s English fractured in increasingly provocative ways. Shakespeare: ” You have scarce time to steal!” and thereafter,”You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn’t enough, in the second half, you have to give what is left.”

The shattering of records and language is seen in  Wayne and Shuster’s theatrical and literate “Shakespearean Baseball Game”.Wayne assumes the role of Yogi Berra. The clever wordplay even inspired a fan letter from Marshall McLuhan. Notice how many of the speeches finished with rhyming couplets.With the score Stratford :4, Yankees : nil and the bard appearing set for victory, Yogi, with a beguiling smile replied :”it ain’t over ’til it’s over.”