Few blocks in America can claim what the 5400 block of Elizabeth Avenue can. Two men honored by baseball’s Hall of Fame, inductee Yogi Berra and broadcaster Joe Garagiola, grew up there, in homes directly across the street from each other.
Two kids from The Hill
Berra was born in 1925 as Lorenzo Pietro Berra. His father had been a tenant farmer in a small town south of Milan before coming to America, according to The World, the public radio program. Garagiola was born a year later. The two were lifelong friends and rivals, and they honed their game on a vacant lot on Elizabeth Avenue, MLB.com reported.
When it came time to sign, the hometown Cardinals offered Garagiola a $500 bonus and Berra $250. Berra turned the Cardinals down, MLB.com reported, and went on to sign with the New York Yankees.
The rest is history. Berra played 19 seasons, reached 14 World Series and won 10 championships with the Yankees, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1972. Garagiola caught for the Cardinals and other teams before a long career as a broadcaster and TV host, and in 1991 the Hall gave him the Ford C. Frick Award, its honor for broadcasters. Garagiola liked to joke that he “wasn’t even the best catcher on my street.”
The pair stayed connected to the neighborhood. In the late 1940s they sold Christmas trees on The Hill in the off-season, with proceeds going to St. Dominic’s Orphan Home, MLB.com reported.
Renaming the block
In June 2003 the 5400 block of Elizabeth was renamed Hall of Fame Place, St. Louis Public Radio reported. Granite plaques marking the Hall of Fame honors of Berra and Garagiola were placed in front of their boyhood homes. The renaming also recognized Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck, who received the Hall’s Ford C. Frick Award in 1987 and lived on The Hill in the late 1950s.
Visiting today
These are private homes, not museums, so admire them from the sidewalk. Look for the Hall of Fame Place street sign and the plaques out front. Berra died in 2015 and Garagiola in 2016, but fans still make the walk down Elizabeth to see where two of baseball’s great characters got their start.
For more on the neighborhood’s past, see our History of The Hill timeline.
Sources: St. Louis Public Radio, National Baseball Hall of Fame, National Baseball Hall of Fame, The World (PRX), MLB.com, Wikipedia, St. Louis Magazine.
