Rant #1,556: The Presidential Medal of Freedom

It was announced during the past few days that Yogi Berra would be presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

He will join other luminaries such as Barbra Streisand, Stephen Sondheim, and Rep. Shirley Chisholm in gaining the honor this time around.

But there is a slight smatter of controversy with what Berra had to do to get this honor, versus the others who are getting the honor with him.

Well, not Yogi himself. Yogi didn't do a thing, other than being Yogi, the Hall of Fame baseball player, the World War II hero, and one of most popularly quoted resources in pop culture.

According to Lindsay Berra, his granddaughter, she had to launch a petition drive in his honor to even be considered for the award. And according to her, he was the only person so honored this year with the award who had to do so.

On Michael Kay's show yesterday on ESPN Radio, Berra said that people had brought it to her attention over the years that her father should be so honored, but until recently, nothing was done about it, because the thought was that the President himself--or at least his advisors--had to choose who they wanted to honor in this way, and her grandfather's name simply hadn't come up in conversation.

But then she did her due diligence, and discovered that others so honored in the past--including one of Yogi's contemporaries, Stan Musial--received his award only after a petition drive was launched to get him at least considered for the award.

Having this knowledge, she launched the drive earlier this year, when her grandfather was still alive, and it ended up registering more than 100,000 electronic signatures, more than enough for the White House to become interested.

And again, according to the younger Berra, he was the only one who had to go through this process to even gain consideration for the award from this year's recipients.

Some of these people you cannot argue with--Willie Mays being one--but the Estefans? James Taylor?

Although Lindsay Berra stayed away from comparing her grandfather to these others, she did say that she was kind of shocked that she had to go through this process with Yogi, when she saw the others who were named this year.

Some other interesting things came out of the interview, one being that President Obama is the most standoffish President of the past few when it comes to hosting athletes in the White House.

Champions are regularly welcomed by the President to the White House, and Michael Kay, who has attended a few of these gatherings as the TV voice of the Yankees, said that the second President Bush was the most welcoming, probably because he was a baseball man himself, a past executive with the Texas Rangers. He even had a framed picture of Nolan Ryan in his office at the White House.

President Clinton was also very welcoming, which probably reflected his Hollywood glitz personality in some way.

But Kay said that for whatever reason--and he said several times that he was not being political about this at all, and he did not want what he said to be miscontrued--President Obama has been the most standoffish to these athletes, not shaking all of their hands and looking to get the photo-op ceremony done because he was into methodical procedures. Each one of these things had a time limit, and Kay said that President Obama kept to the time limit more strictly than the other Presidents.

Whatever the case, Yogi Berra is finally going to be honored in a way that befits this true American hero, and for that, I think we can all agree, it has been a long time coming, but when his family gets the award--Lindsay, her father Larry, and uncles Tim and Dale--it will be worth the wait.