23-Ton Gift From North Dakota : Yogi Berra Gets It in Spuds for Joking Remark

MONTCLAIR, N.J. — Yogi Berra asked for it and today he got it: 23 tons of North Dakota spuds dropped off on his front lawn.

Berra stood in the freezing rain for half an hour with a few neighbors and a battery of reporters waiting for the starchy load, which arrived at about 8 a.m.

“Yogi, what are you doing to us this morning?” a neighbor yelled to the former New York Yankee manager and catcher. He replied, “Come back later, Virginia, and get some potatoes.”

Two truckers drove 2 1/2 days to bring the Red River Valley potatoes from North Dakota. They and three members of the Red River Valley Potato Growers Assn. spent several hours unloading 100 cases of the spuds.

The delivery continued a joke launched by Berra when he visited the state last year and local officials told him North Dakota was among the nation’s largest growers of potatoes.

Berra, a self-proclaimed potato lover, reportedly said, “You don’t have enough potatoes to fill my front lawn.”

“I don’t know if I ever said that,” Berra said. “What the heck, it’s fun. I know one thing, I’ll get enough potatoes for the rest of the year.”