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1964 Phil Linz' Harmonica from Famous Yogi Berra Incident....
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1964 Phil Linz' Harmonica from Famous Yogi Berra Incident. It's been said that music calms the savage beast, but it had quite the opposite effect on Yankees manager Yogi Berra as he sat on the team bus stewing over his club's losses in both halves of the day's doubleheader. The story is recounted in Jim Bouton's famous book Ball Four, remembering shortstop Linz' soulful rendition of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Believing Linz to be making light of the sorry situation, Berra yelled back for Linz to knock off the racket, but Linz didn't hear and kept playing. "If you don't knock that off," Berra yelled back, "I'm going to come back there and kick your ass!" Linz, lost in his song, asked Mantle what Berra had said. "He said to play it louder," Mantle mischievously answered. As Linz followed that advice, Berra stormed to the back of the bus and slapped the harmonica out of Linz' hands, hitting Joe Pepitone with the musical projectile. The front office took the altercation to mean that Berra had lost control of the team, and despite claiming the 1964 pennant, Berra was fired at the close of the season. Presented is the harmonica that changed Yankees history, complete with Linz' letter of provenance to famed collector Barry Halper: "This is the harmonica which I played on the Yankee team bus after we lost a double header in Chicago. Yogi didn't appreciate my musical talent. The Yankees then proceeded to win 22 of their last 30 games to win the AL pennant." Pre-certified by PSA/DNA (Linz autograph). Auction LOA from James Spence Authentication (Linz autograph).View all of [The Seth Swirsky Collection ]
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