Perched in a place of honor on my desk as I write this is a holy relic: a shellacked Rawlings baseball signed by the 1948 New York Yankees. If you look closely, you can make out the signatures of Joe DiMaggio, Vic Raschi, Joe Page, Bobby Brown and the rest. And there in an inconspicuous spot is “Larry Berra”—modest Yogi on the brink of his great fame.

Lorenzo Pietro Berra, later Lawrence Peter—always “Lawdie” to his immigrant parents, who couldn’t pronounce Larry—is the most beloved baseball player of the postwar period, and...