Yogi Berra’s first pro training camp was in Excelsior Springs

Unlike other Yankees icons like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra wasn’t connected to Kansas City through the minor-league Blues. But Berra’s first professional training camp was spent in Excelsior Springs with the Blues.

Berra was a 17-year-old prospect when he reported in 1943, and his first roommate as a pro was Sid Bordman, the Blues’ clubhouse boy who would begin a sports writing career of nearly 35 years at The Star in 1954.

“I guess they wanted a young guy” to room with Berra, Bordman said in a 2014 interview with The Star.

Bordman got a sneak preview of the Berra who would become one of baseball’s most endearing figures through his wit and famous quotations.

Although at the time, Bordman wondered about this young player away from his St. Louis home for the first time.

“I thought he was pretty dense,” Bordman said. “He said a few things that were sort of silly.”

Those silly things became part of Berra’s persona — “Yogi-isms” — and he could always hit. Bordman recalled an American Legion game that Berra had played in a year earlier.

“He drove in eight runs,” Bordman said.

At Excelsior Springs, Berra played in a handful of games and was assigned to the Yankees’ lower-level, minor-league team in Norfolk, Va.

After three years in the Navy — Berra was on a boat stationed off the coast of Normandy on June 6, 1944, D-Day — he returned to the minor leagues in Newark, N.J., in 1946 and began his storied major-league career the next season.

This story was originally published September 23, 2015 at 12:33 PM.