Hey there, Legal Tea Listeners! This is your host, Jenny Rozelle. We’re back to “estate planning of the rich and famous” where we chat about celebrities and their estate planning (or lack thereof!). Today’s episode is on the baseball great, Yogi Berra. If you’re a baseball fan, even a little bit of one, you know who Yogi is – I’m not the biggest baseball fan in the world and I know who he is, but if you do not know who ol’ Yogi Berra is, he’s arguably one of the biggest, most famous names in baseball. He lived a long, long life … passing away at the age of 90 … so as we always do on these celebrity estate planning episodes, let’s talk a little about the person first, then shift into what happened estate-wise following his death in 2015. Let’s dive in…
According to his Wikipedia page, Yogi was born in 1925 and hailed from St. Lous, and more specifically an Italian community in St. Louis called The Hill (if you happen to know that area well). You may not know this, but it also may not surprise you … Yogi was not his real/legal name. His real name was Lorenzo Berra … how he got Yoga was when he was playing in a local baseball league “back ihome” … and his friend, Jack Maguire, another major league baseball player, said that he looked like a yogi (like someone who does yoga) when he “sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after a losing game.” So, Yogi stuck after that. In 1942, Yogi signed with the New York Yankees – though, the following year, in 1943, he joined the Navy for the Second World War. After being discharged in 1946, Yogi played in the minor leagues with the Newark Bears, which was an affiliate at the time to the Yankees.
Still according to his Wikipedia page, on September 22, 1946, Yogi played his first game with the New York Yankees. From there, the years after, his career skyrocketed – setting records, playing in the World Series multiple times (14 to be exact .. with 10 being won), was an All Star and played in many All Star games, won many MVP awards, etc. I mean, the list could go on, honestly. He was not only a fantastic catcher (and in later years, an outfielder), but also an equally fantastic hitter. Yogi was a heck of a baseball player, I tell you. After he ended up retiring as a player, which happened in 1963, he spent some time as a manager and coach of the Yankees, of course, but also some time with the New York Mets and Houston Astros teams.
Shifting to more personal stuff, Yogi married Carmen Short in 1949 and together, they had three children (all three were sons) – Dale, who played professional baseball (for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Yankees, of course, and the Houston Astros); Tim, who played professional football for the Baltimore Colts (which is funny to say since I’m from Indiana … as in Indianapolis Colts) … and Larry, who played baseball in the minor leagues. Fast forward time, Carmen started having some health complications, including a stroke, and ended up dying in March of 2014 at the age of 85. They had very recently celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary before her death. It was not long after Carmen died, about a year and a half or so, when news broke that Yogi died in September of 2015 at the age of 90 … died in his sleep of natural causes.
So, shifting to what happened estate-wise following his death, well … this seems to be a theme recently on these celebrity estate planning episodes .. and as I’ve talked about before, that’s usually a good thing. When estate planning is done poorly or not done at all, that’s usually when things start getting plastered on headlines about so-and-so’s estate. Though, I did a lot, and I mean A LOT, of digging looking for anything on Yogi’s estate. While I didn’t find a ton, so that tells me he probably had a pretty good estate plan, I did find a few things we could talk about on here – which I think are interesting!
According to New York Times, about twenty-five years ago, Yogi’s sons, Dale, Tim, and Larry, formed a company called LTD Enterprises for the purpose of managing Yogi’s autographing and sponsorship opportunities. Dale, the oldest, when explaining “why” the created the company, he shared, “We created the company to protect him. Dad was naïve and humble, and he was taken advantage of by agents and people in his life, signing baseballs for $15 each when guys like Mantle and Mays got $100.” Eventually, LTD Enterprises partnered with Steiner Sports Marketing to help promote and maintain Yogi’s “brand.” As Tim, the middle son, explained, their “main goal was to keep their Dad’s name around.”
Well, in 2016, the year after Yogi died, Yogi’s estate, LTD Enterprises, and Steiner Sports Marketing hit this “fork in the road” where they had to gauge the likelihood of success of continuing Yogi’s brand, or his name and likeness, following his death. In fact, as the New York Times article asks the reader, “How potent will [Yogi’s] name continue to be?” Well, Tim answered and said, “That’s a good question. We’re trying to see what’s still there. But he has some advantages: He’s a great Yankee, he’s well known outside the athletic genre, and he’s beloved by everybody.”
Well, this New York Times article was releasing an update on the relationship between LTD Enterprises and Steiner Sports marketing – and that the Estate, LTD Enterprises, and Steiner reached an agreement that gives Steiner the sole authority or as the article states, “the exclusive rights to market [Yogi’s] name and likeness and the rights to sell remaining pieces of his collection of memorabilia, including his 1953 World Series championship ring and several of his player contracts.” Though the article confirmed that nothing in the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, which is located in New Jersey, will be sold. Rather, the goal and “focus will be on licensing the Berra name to products like apparel, food, posters, and trading cards.”
You know, I did a former Legal Tea episode a handful of episodes ago that talked about a publicist, an agent … well, it’s technically a company, CMG Worldwide, that exclusively represents deceased celebrities. Well, I mention that because in this New York Time article I’ve been talking about actually brought CMG Worldwide up – and it talked about how there’s something called the Davie-Brown Index, which measures a celebrity’s influence on consumers. Can you believe there’s actually a thing for that? I guess I’m not surprised, but yep – Davie-Brown Index is what it’s called and what it’s for. Really interesting, huh!
Now, shifting to another story about Yogi – like I said earlier, I searched and searched for anything about Yogi’s estate plan and couldn’t find anything. Though, I found article after article talking about how some of Yogi’s famous quips would be excellent tips and tricks and advice for financial planning. In fact, one article or blog maybe a better word to use was from a law firm called Guideway Legal Document and Mediation in California … started the blog off with this statement, “Yogi Berra made an extraordinary contribution to baseball, but he also provided savvy advice that applies to estate planning and life planning.” Well, I bring that up because it’s a good example of my next little story that would be good to share about Yogi’s legal and financial decisions – granted, I’m kind of cheating because this happened while he was living, but it’s a good one.
So, an article from a local new source in New Jersey called NJ, which is all these source links are on page on Legal Tea’s website for this episode, anyway – so it shared a story about how in the 1950s, Yogi (and like 20 other Yankees teammates) were hounded by a real estate guru who offered to sell them land in central Florida for cheap – like $30 an acre. Every single one them, including Yogi, bought several plots of land. Well, fast forward some time, it was relayed to them that the land was too swampy and would be unable to be built on. Around that time, in 1964, someone named M.T. Lott offered all of them $150 an acre for those useless silly plots of and. Every single one of them sold – except for Yogi.
The next year, in 1964, it was released that the mysterious fellow named M.T. Lott was actually Walt Disney and as the NJ article states, he was “quietly snapping up land for his next project, a Disney World, to be built in central Florida.” It was eventually released that Walt Disney obtained 27,000 acres of those supposed swampy plots of land for “next to nothing, but to complete his plans, stubborn hold-out owners like Yogi had to be wooed.” So remember his teammates sold their plots for $150 an acre. Well, Yogi eventually settled on a price of $300,000 an acre on his. Talk about a heck of a financial lesson and deal! I thought that story was a cool one to share about Yogi – and you know, financial planning really goes hand-in-hand with my world of estate planning. After all, estate planning quite literally deals with your assets.
As we wrap this episode up, I think it’s so important to re-emphasize that this episode was filled with a couple of specific stores relating to Yogi – but what the stories did not consist of was some dramatic estate saga that was all over the news headlines. It’s very likely that Yogi had a very good estate plan – even if he had just a Last Will and Testament, I could have probably put my hands on that and told you who-got-what, but since that appears to not be “out there” I’m guessing he had some estate planning that allowed his family to receive their parts of Yogi’s estate free of any probate court process. So, good for Yogi! He is not only good at baseball, but also appears to be good at estate planning too! Love it!
Alrighty, let’s wrap this episode up and shift to a sneak peak at next week. Next week we’re back to a “cautionary tale” episode where we talk about real-life clients, real-life cases that I, or my office, have worked on -or- maybe they are just generally good things to know/be aware of so you don’t slip up and turn into a cautionary tale one day. Next week, we are going to talk about something that I think many don’t really understand – we’re going to talk about when it is appropriate (or maybe not) for someone to sign estate documents. I think a lot of people think, “Oh this person has dementia, they can’t sign anymore!” In my world, it’s not that black-and-white; it’s not a bright line rule like that. So tune in for that next week, but until then, Legal Tea Listeners…take care and be well!
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