Dale Berra Stats & Facts
VINTAGE BASEBALL MEMORABILIA
Vintage Baseball Memorabilia
Dale Berra
Positions: Shortstop and Third Baseman
Bats: Right • Throws: Right
6-0, 180lb (183cm, 81kg)
Born: December 13, 1956 in Ridgewood, NJ us
Draft: Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1st round (20th) of the 1975 MLB June Amateur Draft from Montclair HS (Montclair, NJ).
High School: Montclair HS (Montclair, NJ)
Debut: August 22, 1977 (13,942nd in major league history)
vs. SDP 3 AB, 0 H, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 0 SB
Last Game: October 4, 1987
vs. CIN 3 AB, 2 H, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 0 SB
Full Name: Dale Anthony Berra
Nicknames: Boo Boo
View Player Info from the B-R Bullpen
View Player Bio from the SABR BioProject
Relatives: Son of Yogi Berra
Nine Players Who Debuted in 1977
Eddie Murray
Lou Whitaker
Alan Trammell
Jack Morris
Lance Parrish
Dale Berra
Bump Wills
Rick Honeycutt
Willie Hernandez
Notable Events and Chronology for Dale Berra Career
The saga of Dale Berra proves great genetics are not enough to make a great ballplayer. The son of all-time great Yogi Berra, Dale was an all around athlete in high school, twice being selected to the New Jersey All-State team in baseball and earning honors in football and hockey as well.
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates selected Berra in the first round of the 1975 amateur draft in 1975 and assigned him to Niagra Falls where he led the New York-Penn League with 49 rbi’s in 67 games. Promoted to Charleston in 1976, the shortstop hit .298 with 16 homeruns and 89 rbi’s. Berra started 1977 with AAA Columbus and was hitting .290 with 18 homers when he was called up to the Pirates on August 22 to replace the injured Rennie Stennett on the roster.
He earned a late season promotion in 1977 and hit .175 in 17 games. He bounced between the majors and minors the next two seasons, hitting .209 with nine homers in 100 combined games at the big league level. He finally spent the entire season in the majors in 1980, splitting his time between third base and shortstop. In 93 games he hit .220 with 31 RBIs. In 1981, he got time in at second base as well as the other spots, playing at least 18 games at each position. He hit .241 with a career high 11 stolen bases during that strike shortened season. Berra became the team’s regular shortstop starting in 1982 and continuing through the 1984 season. That first year he set career highs in nearly every category, hitting .263 with 10 homers, 61 RBIs and 63 runs scored. In 1983 he played a career high 161 games. In 1984 his average dropped to .222 and following the season the Pirates traded him to the Yankees. In 744 games with the Pirates he hit .238 with 255 RBIs. He made exactly 30 errors in each of his three full seasons at shortstop in Pittsburgh.
New York Yankees
Packaged in a trade with the Yankees, Berra went to work for his father, Yogi, who was managing for George Steinbrenner at the time. It marked the first time a son had played for his father since Earl Mack had put in token appearances for the A’s when Connie was managing them. Berra, Sr., of course, was fired by Steinbrenner early in the season and Dale’s abilities continued to decline and his name was mentioned in some embarrassing situations, including baseball’s drug trials. It should be noted, however, that Berra, along with Don Robinson, were the teammates that first encouraged Rod Scurry to seek help when the lefthander’s cocaine addiction got out of control and had been well-liked by his teammates who saw him as a fun-loving guy.
Pittsburgh drug trials
On September 9, 1985, Berra testified during the cocaine distribution trial of Curtis Strong that he shared cocaine with Lee Lacy, John Milner, Dave Parker, Lee Mazzilli and Rod Scurry while all were members of the Pirates, and that his own drug use peaked while he was injured during the 1984 season.
On February 28, 1986 Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth handed down suspensions to eleven players, seven of whom received a full season suspension, including Berra. All avoided the suspensions by agreeing to donate a small percentage of their 1986 salaries to a drug program and do community service work. The players who received the full year suspensions were allowed to play under the condition that they donated ten percent of their base salaries to drug-related community service, submitted to random drug testing, and contributed 100 hours of drug-related community service.
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Factoids, Quotes, Strange Things
Played For
Pittsburgh Pirates (1977-1984)
New York Yankees (1985-1986)
Houston Astros (1987)
Quotes From Berra
“I don’t think I’ll ever play shortstop in Pittsburgh. Frank Taveras is the shortstop. I think I’ll play a different position.” — Dale Berra, as a minor leaguer the Pirates organization in 1978