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YOGI BERRA is one of baseball's greatest catchers, the Yankees' greatest players, and the game's greatest ambassadors.

DAVE KAPLAN, a former editor and reporter for the "New York Daily News," is the director of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center. He has cowritten Yogi's last three books.

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"The most valuable team player in sports" shows you what "teamwork" really means

What does it take to be a real team player, especially in a society that glorifies selfishness and a corporate culture that often uses "team player" as a buzzword but rewards only the showboaters and prima donnas? Well, "You Can Observe a Lot by Watching." In this happy and hilarious guide to teamwork, sportsmanship, and winning, Yogi Berra draws on the timeless wisdom handed down by example from ballplayers who came before him to inspire you to make the right choices and become not only a better team player--at sports, at work, and in life--but a better person.

Filled with colorful stories from his life and career, not to mention the down-to-earth wit and insight that Yogi fans love, "You Can Observe a Lot by Watching" shows you how to make a bad team good and a good team great.

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Long before Yogi Berra became world famous for his inimitable use of the English language, he was loved by millions of baseball fans as one of the greatest catchers in the history of the game and a fierce competitor who would do anything to help his team and his teammates win.

In "You Can Observe a Lot by Watching," Yogi offers good-natured reminiscing with a serious purpose in mind: to deliver a thoughtful and instructive account of the single most important factor in creating a winning team in any sport, business, or other venture--teamwork.

Over his seventeen years as a major-league player, Yogi and his Yankee teammates won fourteen pennants and ten World Series. Sharing hundreds of telling stories from those golden years, Yogi demonstrates that the secret of the team's fabulous success was not merely the stellar play of Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, and Yogi himself; it was the way they and everyone else on the roster worked together, on and off the field. DiMaggio gave a rookie named Berra a tip that changed his career. Mantle's good humor kept the whole team loose when things were going badly. And, in 1960, Maris surprised everyone by bunting a runner in from third rather than swinging away for his 55th homer.

In this heartfelt tribute to qualities that often appear to be fading from professional sports, Yogi shows you how to be a better teammate and contribute all you can to your team's quest for excellence. You'll learn why even the greatest players have to put the team's welfare before their own, protect their teammates, and take responsibility for their actions. You'll discover the secret of being a good teammate to someone you don't really like; the importance of controlling your emotions in every situation; and how even the least talented player can make outstanding contributions to the team.

Complete with colorful tales about Don Larsen's perfect game, the twelve Yankees who played on all of the teams that won five consecutive championships, and how Phil Linz's harmonica turned a tough season into a trip to the World Series, "You Can Observe a Lot by Watching" gives you the most fun you'll ever have while learning something, too.

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You Can Observe A Lot By Watching

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

All I know is we were all teammates, team-first guys, because the team good came before all.

YOU HEAR THE WORDS "team player" all the time, just not in my time. You never heard it on our Yankees teams back when. Never heard of a go-to guy, either. Or someone throwing someone under the bus. Maybe we talked different in the 1950s and '60s, I don't know.

This was before e-mails, cell phones, and this blogging thing. This was before people started comparing sports and business all the time. I don't remember coaches and bosses being control freaks, or managers being micromanagers. When we played there was a bullpen, not a bullpen by committee. To me "at the end of the day" simply meant going to bed. We took risks without having to think outside the box. Now if someone doesn't get with the program or doesn't get on the same page, there's words for that person, too: "Not a team player." I take that to mean a person who doesn't play in the team spirit and is a potential pain in the neck.

Today's sayings are different. People always think I make up my own sayings, but they just come out. I don't know I say them. If you asked me to describe our old Yankees teams, the ones I played on from the late 1940s to the early '60s, what would I say? I'd say we were pretty good. We won an awful lot. In today's business talk we'd be called a high-performance work organization.

All I know is we were all teammates, team-first guys, because the team good came before all. I think it was a behavioral thing, what you learn as a kid. Those skills about getting along on the playground translated into the bigger playing field. Sure, our Yankees teams coordinated well with each other. We all accepted our roles and responsibilities. I always say we were like family. Did we have disagreements and times of trouble? What family doesn't? But we always pulled for each other, trusted each other, counted on each other. That's what all families and teams should do, but don't always.

Before I go on, I have to level. This is no self-help book. I'm no expert on mind games. Dizzy Trout, who used to pitch for the Detroit Tigers, used to tell people, "We pitch to Yogi with psychology because Yogi doesn't know what psychology is." That's true. To me it was hard to think and hit at the same time. Baseball can be a thinking game-90 percent of it is half mental, I said once-but it's still not exactly mental science.

Also, this is no how-to or business book. Baseball is huge business, that's undeniable. Players make small fortunes and teams have luxury taxes. Now there's a moneyball philosophy that values players based on certain statistics that I don't ever suspect about knowing. So I'm no business wizard, either.

What I know pretty good, being in and around sports my whole life, is teamwork. That's being a player on a team who makes a difference, a good difference. You don't need the most great players, just the most team-first, me-last players. Bill Bradley, the former basketball star and senator, said, "The great player is one who makes the worst player on the team good."

If you ask me, the true best players are those who influence their teammates positively. Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle did it with us in our day. They set examples. They gutted through tough times, never made excuses. Everybody trusted and respected them because, to them, being a good teammate was more important than being a star. The Yankees' well-being came before theirs.

Every team has players who may be standouts. I just don't like when standouts try to stand out. In today's culture, it seems like attention-getters become celebrities. In sports you see more hey-look-at-me stuff during a game-players celebrating themselves. Some of these guys who make a tackle on a kickoff go into hysterics, thumping their chests all the way across the field. Why? They did their job. They made a tackle. That's what they're supposed to do.

I know I'm from a different time, and things aren't the same today. Now players are more like entertainers. Still, I wonder if they realize how self-centered and glory-minded they appear. Let me just say I'm not against excitement or exuberance or celebrating a great moment. Don't think we never got real exuberant. People ask if I had planned jumping in Don Larsen's arms during the World Series. All I planned on was giving my best in an important game. Planning on catching a perfect game wasn't planned. Sports are emotional. Still, I don't like players who stand and admire their home runs like they finished painting a masterpiece. Or put on a burlesque act after scoring a touchdown. It becomes more about self and showing off than teamwork and working together.

Mostly it doesn't build relationships or loyalty. And what every team and every business needs is loyalty. For me, loyalty to teammates trumped everything. Sure, sports is business, always has been, and there's less loyalty and it's a bigger business than ever. Sometimes I felt management could've been more loyal, at least more generous, during contract time. Actually I had seventeen one-year contracts, probably the most in Yankees history. It was my choice. The front office wanted to give me a two-year or three-year contract, but I felt it was an extra incentive to have the best year I could. I didn't want to get stuck. Of course, I couldn't achieve what I wanted to without the trust and help of my teammates. And vice versa. We just had a loyalty to each other. I know loyalty is more fragile in business. It's fragile in professional sports. People are more transient than ever. But being a trusted coworker or a good teammate should never go out of style.

That's the great thing about watching certain star players in different sports. They get what they give. Guys like Steve Nash and Tim Duncan in basketball, Mariano Rivera and David Ortiz in baseball, and Curtis Martin and Jerome Bettis recently in football; all feel a duty to their teammates. They do what their team needs them to do. They don't embarrass anybody. Teammates love being on their side; they forge a we're-in-it-together atmosphere. When the pressure's on, they raise their game, and that can raise their teammates' play, too.

I used to play a lot of soccer as a kid and still watch it. It's near impossible to rush through the opposing team and be a one-man difference. Just look at David Beckham, and millions do. But I don't look at all the razzmatazz and personal life. The guy's a famous soccer player not because of his looks or goal-scoring, but because of his passing and crossing. A showboater he's not. He makes his teammates better and that matters most to him-"being a team player," he says.

Great players like Beckham will always get heaps of publicity, but what makes them truly great players is how they work within their team. If a teammate needs help, they reach out. Maybe it's a pat on the back or a helpful pointer, or always saying "we" and "us" instead of "me" and "I." Everything to them is team-oriented.

Tom Brady's a lot like that. Being a quarterback who looks like a movie star, he's always the main attraction, but he plays without ego. Bill Belichick, his coach with the Patriots, is a big baseball fan and visited the Yankees at spring training one day. He told me Brady is the first guy at practice and the last to leave. His effect on his teammates...