Yogi guided me into the light of day

It was in the wee hours of the morning when the bulletin declared it an official game, that lovable Yogi Berra had died at age 90.

It occurred that I might have even seen him play, because I am just old enough. I vaguely remember seeing a guy named Pete Ward play for the White Sox, and he and Yogi were sort of contemporaries.

But it seems I saw Yogi play. I'm certain most baseball fans feel the same way. Perhaps that is the man's greatest legacy.

I actually remember Yogi Berra's Strat-O-Matic card better than I remember his baseball card. A dice roll of 2-5 against a right-handed pitcher on Yogi's Stratomatic card is a 19 in 20 chance of a home run, and a roll of 2-9 is an automatic home run.

Pete Ward's card isn't quite so go good.

But it seems everybody in baseball, anybody who has played it at whatever level — even if it was only on a tabletop, with dice — has a Yogi Berra story. These stories have been told and retold since the bulletin made it an official game. They are pleasant stories. Though many are grammatically incorrect, because that was Yogi's style, they always make you smile.

And so here's mine. It happened in Houston in 1986.

The little newspaper I worked for in the Four Corners sent me to Texas to write about a kid named Duane Ward making his major league debut with the Atlanta Braves. Ward was a right-hander from Farmington, N.M. He was picked ninth overall by the Braves in the 1982 free-agent draft. He was big kid who could make a baseball hum.

After the Braves turned him into a relief pitcher, he had a real nice career in the majors. He led the American League in saves one year while pitching for the Blue Jays during Joe Carter's day.

Anyway, this was my first major league game, as it was for Duane Ward. I was more nervous than a September call-up.

I was supposed to meet Braves manager Chuck Tanner on the field during batting practice; the Atlanta P.R. man said Chuck would gladly answer any questions I had about Duane Ward.

I got to the Astrodome early. Probably just after the team changed its name to Astros from Colt .45s.

I remember going to the press entrance by the loading dock, and then I remember getting lost in the darkened bowels of the Houston Astrodome, which by then was no longer the "Eighth Wonder of the World," but a bastion of peeling paint and bare light bulbs and well-worn artificial turf on which you could see football yard lines from Oilers games.

Below field level, it looked like catacombs, or a coal mine that had been boarded up. Have you seen my wife, Mrs. Jones? Do you know what it's like on the outside?

I wandered in the murk, trying to find the clubhouses or the dugouts or a hot dog vendor. I did not talk too loud, for fear of causing a landslide.

Still no light.

I heard the familiar scrape of baseball cleats on concrete. The scrape kept coming closer. Please don't let this be Gibson, I thought.

Bob Gibson was the Braves' pitching coach then. I had read the stories about him and Tim McCarver. I was terrified of Bob Gibson.

It was Yogi Berra who was making the scraping sound.

He was a coach with the Astros then, already 14 years in the Hall of Fame. He was carrying a fungo bat. He was wearing that horrible horizontal striped Houston jersey from the 1980s that looked like somebody had puked Skittles all over it, if Skittles only came in red, yellow and orange.

I sheepishly asked Yogi — I believe I may have called him Mr. Berra — if he could show me the way to the playing field. I said I was supposed to interview Chuck Tanner about Duane Ward during batting practice. As if that would impress him.

He said, "This way, kid," or something profound like that.

And so I followed Yogi Berra in subterranean darkness as his cleats continued to scrape toward the light.

I remember the fungo bat with the tape on the end, and the big No. 8 on his back, and I remember feeling melancholy for Yogi -- not so much because he was no longer playing baseball, and guys my age couldn't recall having seen him play it, but because he had to wear that silly jersey.

If there was a fork in the road, we didn't take it.

And then there was light, coming from the Houston dugout, and then I saw Billy Doran applying pine tar to his bat.

Out on the field were strapping guys and Bob Horner, wearing blue road uniforms that said "Atlanta" in script letters on front. I heard the familiar sound of batting practice being taken under an unfamiliar giant roof.

A few minutes later, on the other side of the indoor diamond, Chuck Tanner shook my hand and called me "Young Man." He couldn't have been nicer in talking about Duane Ward. I think he might have even introduced me to Al Monchak.

Soon, the Astros would have the field. Yogi Berra would hit these high fungoes to the Houston outfielders that I lost track of in the decrepit Astrodome's ceiling panels. But Denny Walling or whoever was out there caught every one.

I remember what a thrill it was to be there.

But if I learned anything from the experience, it's that when one is a long way from home and feeling lost, hearing footsteps in the darkness isn't always a bad thing.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him: @ronkantowski