Berra Challenge

[Fred Shapiro]

On Thu, 12 May 2005 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> CLIFFORD TERRY. Chicago Tribune (1963-Current file). Chicago, Ill.: Feb 22,
> 1966. p. B5 (1 page) :
> It's _deja vu_ all over again--the usual gaggle of gimmicks...

Thanks -- this is considerably earlier than what I had.  In _The Yogi
Book_ (1998), Berra describes this as "My comment after Mickey Mantle and
Roger Maris hit back-to-back home runs for the umpteenth time."

Speaking of Berra, the earliest I have for "It ain't over till it's over"
or variants thereof is 26 Sept. 1977.  Barry has found "You're not out of
it until you're out of it" from 30 June 1974.  Yet Berra is supposed to
have said the first of these in July 1973, when the Mets were nine games
out of first.  Can anyone come up with earlier evidence?  These
expressions are hard to search for because you have variants like till,
'til, until...

Fred Shapiro


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------