Yankee great Yogi Berra, a humble and wise man, once said, “I really didn’t say everything I said.” One thing Berra did say was “It ain’t over til it’s over.” It’s on his plaque in Yankee Stadium.
The plaque also calls Berra a “legendary Yankee.” While it is true that he is one of the greatest players ever (three-time AL MVP, fifteen-time All-Star, ten World Series championships as a player), Yogi Berra said those words while wearing the uniform of the New York Mets.
It was 1973. The Mets were stuck in last, as usual. Berra was managing the Mets at the time, and that’s when he said it: It ain’t over til it’s over.
The Mets went on to win the division, beat the Cincinnati Reds in the playoffs, and go up 3 games to 2 against the Oakland A’s in the World Series.
They lost the next two games. Proving, again, that it ain’t over til it’s over.
If you’re a Mets fan, this is what you cling to: World Series championships in 1969 and 1986 (when it ain’t over came through big time), two other appearances (1973 and 2000), and that’s it.
Most years, it’s over long before it’s over. We cling to seasons like 1973, even if the team didn’t win it all that year. And then we have to live with the quote that defines one quarter of our team’s glory, as it were, being engraved on the plaque of a legendary Yankee that hangs in the Bronx.
As if the Yankees need, on top of everything else, miracle comebacks and unlikely winning streaks.
The Mets collapsed in 2007. Seven game lead with seventeen to play? It ain’t over til it’s over. In 2008 (déjà vu all over again), they blew another comfortable lead and missed the playoffs on the last day of the season, for the second year in a row.
Injuries made last year less stressful (no chance for a late season disaster). Spring training just started, but it ain’t over til it’s over isn’t just hopeful any more; now there’s a hint of dread.
I like this new ambiguity. When it comes to the future, sometimes I’m an optimist and sometimes I’m a pessimist. I’m on the fence. The glass is always fuller on the other side. Hope for the best, be ready for the worst.
We need more it ain’t over thinking.
As crazy as this sounds, it would have made more sense if George W. Bush had stood in front of an It ain’t over til it’s over banner instead of one which read Mission Accomplished. It would have accurately described the situation in Iraq, informed Americans that there were years of hard work to come, and made it look like Bush knew what he was doing.
It ain’t over says you can’t give up, you better keep doing your best – and you can’t count on anything, even if you’re way ahead. That pretty much describes reality in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mission accomplished makes you think the hard part is over. You ease up. When you learn there’s still work to do, you’re demoralized, you can’t get going again. That describes what happened to us in Iraq and Afghanistan, before we got smart and realized it ain’t over til it’s over.
If it’s not good for us, why do we do it all the time? Let’s stamp out mission accomplished thinking. The best way to do that is to recognize it when it happens. So here are the First Annual Mission Accomplished Awards.
Our first finalist is President Barack Obama. On Dec 24 2009, after the Senate passed its version of health care reform, Obama said, “We are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people.”
Less than a month later Scott Brown won a special election in Massachusetts, and health care reform was on life support. Mission accomplished, Mr. President. Next time, try: it ain’t over til it’s over.
Our second finalist is Bill Cassidy (R-LA, who said this recently: “We don’t hear people complaining about the premiums on their health insurance.”
Then Anthem sent letters to their California customers telling them their premiums were going up by 37%. Anthem is owned by WellPoint, which had more than $4 billion profit in 2009. But, since young, healthy people are struggling to make ends meet, they’re dropping their health insurance. And when healthy people drop out of a plan, rates go up for those who are left… the ones who need it.
Cassidy’s prize is a quote from “First Blood” (not a movie about health care):
Trautman: It’s over, Johnny. It’s over.
Rambo: Nothing is over! Nothing!
I can hear the fat lady singing…
This year’s grand prize goes to Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky). Bunning pitched for four teams from 1955 to 1971. He pitched a perfect game against the Mets in ’64. For that, I don’t like him already.
In a must-win game against the Yankees in ’61 Bunning, who describes himself as “meaner than a snake”, gave up back-to-back homers to Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. And he was part of the Phillies late-season collapse in ’64. Sweet revenge!
In the past week Bunning, all by himself, stopped a bill that would have added $10 billion to a budget that was already $1.56 trillion in the red. Why? “If we can’t find $10 billion somewhere for a bill that everybody in this body supports, we will never pay for anything.”
The senator complained about missing the Kentucky-South Carolina college basketball game, and declared his budget-balancing mission accomplished.
There’s little difference between $1.56 and $1.57 trillion. Bunning had to make a point. Here’s what else he accomplished:
- cut payments for unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies for 1.1 million laid-off workers;
- cut Medicare payments to doctors by 21% (this will reduce availability of medical care to seniors and others);
- cut a small business loan program;
- cut funding for state highway projects, sending construction workers home;
- cut 4,000 federal jobs (Department of Transportation) immediately;
- cut federal programs to combat drunk driving and highway safety.
It will take more than $10 billion to undo what meaner-than-a-snake Bunning has done. He doesn’t care; he’s retiring. For him, it’s over. Not soon enough.

