New York Yankee baseball great Yogi Berra is well known for his humorous sayings, although Yogi once remarked: “I never said everything I said.” Yogi was once asked what time it was (usually attributed to a teammate or specifically to Joe DiMaggio), and responded, “Do you mean right now?”

In a 1970 newspaper interview, Mickey Mantle (Berra’s New York Yankee teammate 1951-1963) mentions the Yogi saying, indicating that it was probably said in the 1950s or early 1960s.


Wikipedia: Yogi Berra
Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra (born May 12, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a former Major League Baseball player and manager. He played almost his entire career for the New York Yankees and was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. He was one of only four players to be named the Most Valuable Player of the American League three times, and one of only six managers to lead both American and National League teams to the World Series.

Berra, who quit school in the eighth grade, has a tendency toward malapropism and fracturing the English language in highly provocative, interesting ways. Simultaneously denying and confirming his reputation, Berra once stated, “I never said half the things I really said.”

24 November 1970, Fresno (CA) Bee, pg. 10A, col. 1:
(Mickey Mantle quotation—ed.)
“Yogi Berra was good manager. He came within one game of winning a World Series (The Cards won 4-3 in 1964) and still got fired. Yogi had a funny way of saying things, like you’d ask what time it was and ol’ Yogi would say ‘You mean right now?’”

21 October 1987, Los Angeles (CA) Times, sports section, pg. 2:
Yogi Berra, when asked by Joe DiMaggio what time it was: “You mean right now?”