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Who really said it

It ain't over till it's over

Attributed to Yogi Berra 1925–2015 · Yankees catcher, Mets manager, accidental aphorist
Attributed In copyright

Berra is credited with this line everywhere, and he printed it under his own name in The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said! (Workman, 1998), dating it to the New York Mets’ 1973 pennant race — but no 1973 source has been found containing that wording. Etymologist Barry Popik, whose dated chronology is the standard reference here, writes plainly that “This exact quote hasn’t been found”; what the New York Post actually printed on 4 September 1973 was Berra saying “Yeah, it’s running out, but you’re still not out of it until it’s automatic.”

Last verified 7 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“It ain't over till it's over” Attributed to Yogi Berra. He printed the line in The Yogi Book: I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said! (Workman, 1998) and dated it to the Mets' 1973 pennant race, but no 1973 source has been found with that exact wording — the closest contemporaneous record is Berra in the New York Post, 4 September 1973, p. 64: "Yeah, it's running out, but you're still not out of it until it's automatic." Chronology: Barry Popik, "It ain't over 'til it's over," The Big Apple.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Yogi Berra and Workman Publishing (The Yogi Book, 1998)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Yogi Berra — Yankees catcher, three-time AL MVP, Mets manager. Theme: "It ain't over till it's over". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "It ain't over till it's over". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What the 1973 record actually holds

Claimed occasion
New York Mets’ 1973 National League East pennant race
Closest 1973 record
“you’re still not out of it until it’s automatic” — New York Post, 4 September 1973, p. 64, col. 1
Book carrying the wording
The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said!
Published
Workman Publishing, New York, 1998

Yeah, it’s running out, but you’re still not out of it until it’s automatic. 4 September 1973 · New York Post

Berra’s answer when asked whether time was running out on the Mets, transcribed by Barry Popik from the New York Post of 4 September 1973, p. 64, col. 1 — the same citation he first posted to the American Dialect Society list in 1999. ADS-L, 10 October 1999 ↗ Popik gives the headline it answered as “Time Running Out on Mets”; Pitcher List renders the same headline more loosely as “Time is Running Out on the Mets.” Pitcher List ↗ This is the closest thing to the famous line in the 1973 record — and it is not the famous line.

Barry Popik: the dated citation chronology

Paper trail

  • 1892 — the sentiment is already a stock proverb with no owner, and not a specifically baseball one: the Lawrence (KS) Daily Journal, 11 April 1892, p. 2, has “THERE is an old adage that says a game is never out till it is played out. This applies as well to politics as to seven up.” Popik notes that no particular person has been credited for the adage. The Big Apple ↗
  • 4 September 1973 — what Berra is actually on record saying during the Mets’ run, in the New York Post, p. 64, col. 1: “Yeah, it’s running out, but you’re still not out of it until it’s automatic.” Popik on ADS-L ↗
  • 1975, then 1984 — the wording tightens in print while his name stays attached. Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 June 1975, p. 1-C: “in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, ‘The game’s not over ’til it’s over.’” Sports Illustrated, 2 April 1984: he knows a managing job, like a ball game, “ain’t over ’til it’s over.” The Big Apple ↗
  • 1998 — Berra prints the polished line himself, in The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said! (Workman Publishing), tied to the 1973 Mets. It is the source Wikiquote gives — though the reference books that predate it, the Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings (1996) and the American Heritage Dictionary of American Quotations (1997), already date the line to the 1973 Mets without citing any printed source at all; the latter notes that quotations popularly pinned on Berra usually come “without much evidence.” Internet Archive ↗
In copyright

Every citation that carries the modern wording is in copyright in the United States. The only work that carries the exact wording under Berra’s name is The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said! (Workman Publishing, 1998), and the newspaper citations that carry the tightening phrase — 1973, 1975, 1979, 1984 — all fall well after the 1931 US public-domain threshold. The 1892 Lawrence (KS) Daily Journal antecedent at the head of the trail is public domain, but it is a different sentence. Where the exact sentence was first coined remains undocumented, so treat the wording as in copyright rather than free to reuse.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Right man, tidied-up words

Nobody argues this belongs to someone else. The problem is narrower and more common than a misattribution: the sentence everyone quotes is smoother than anything anyone recorded Berra saying at the time.

Yogi Berra, 1973 Not in the 1973 record

Barry Popik’s chronology puts it plainly: “This exact quote hasn’t been found, but Berra did say in September 1973…” — and what follows is the New York Post of 4 September 1973, p. 64, col. 1: “Yeah, it’s running out, but you’re still not out of it until it’s automatic.” The Big Apple ↗

Red Holzman, New York Knicks coach Same autumn, different man

Popik logs the Asbury Park (NJ) Evening Press of 20 October 1973, p. 11: “The Knicks learned that, as coach Red Holzman phrased it, ‘that a ball game isn’t over until it’s over.’” That is not a claim Holzman coined anything — it is evidence that the construction was circulating in 1973 sports pages beyond Berra. The Big Apple ↗

Newspaper writers of the 1980s Attributed, not transcribed

Pitcher List’s fact-check points to the New York Times “Connecticut Journal” column of 30 May 1982, which quotes the future senator Joe Lieberman saying of the attorney general’s race “As Yogi Berra said, ‘it ain’t over till it’s over’” — the earliest instance of the exact wording it could pin down, and expressly only “at least in the New York Times” rather than in print generally. Even that is someone quoting Berra rather than a record of him speaking. Pitcher List ↗

Berra himself, 1998 Claimed in his own book

Berra printed the line in The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said! (Workman Publishing, 1998) and tied it to his 1973 Mets. Internet Archive ↗ Wikiquote accordingly files the line in its sourced “Yogiisms” section, sourced to that book and nothing earlier. Wikiquote ↗

The safest true sentence: the thought is Berra’s and he claimed the line in print himself, but the famous wording is not documented from 1973 — the contemporaneous record is a rougher sentence in the New York Post of 4 September 1973, and the sentiment itself was already a stock proverb by 1892, applied as readily to politics and card games as to baseball. The Big Apple ↗

Context

The comeback that made the line worth saying

Berra took over the Mets in 1972 and by midsummer 1973 was managing a last-place team. Wikipedia’s account of the season has the Mets trailing the Chicago Cubs by 9½ games in the National League East in July; they went on to win the division and reach the World Series. Wikipedia ↗ That is the summer the line is always dated to, and it is why it stuck: the manager who said the season wasn’t finished turned out to be right.

What survives from that September, though, is rougher than the version on the poster. Popik’s chronology records the New York Post of 4 September 1973, p. 64, with Berra answering a question about time running out: “Yeah, it’s running out, but you’re still not out of it until it’s automatic.” Same thought, none of the polish. The Big Apple ↗

“This exact quote hasn’t been found.” — Barry Popik

The sentiment is older than Berra

The underlying adage predates him by generations. Popik’s earliest citation is the Lawrence (KS) Daily Journal of 11 April 1892, p. 2: “a game is never out till it is played out.” He notes that no particular person has been credited with the adage. The Big Apple ↗

The tightening happens across the following decade of newsprint, and Berra’s name rides along with it. Popik logs the Cincinnati Enquirer of 15 June 1975, p. 1-C — “Or, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, ‘The game’s not over ’til it’s over’” — the New York Times of 23 August 1979, p. B11 with “It’s never over until it’s over,” and Sports Illustrated of 2 April 1984, which has Berra knowing that a managing job, like a ball game, “ain’t over ’til it’s over.” The Big Apple ↗

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Resilience Hope

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

It ain't over 'til it's over — The Big Applebarrypopik.com

The anchor chronology: dated citations from an 1892 Kansas adage through 1984, plus the flat statement that the exact quote hasn't been found.
Yogi Berra — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Files the line in the sourced "Yogiisms" section, citing only Berra's own book — and does not list it under Disputed or Misattributed.
It Ain't Over: One of Baseball's Favorite Sayings was Never Saidpitcherlist.com

Brandon Riddle's 2020 fact-check tracing the wording's mutation, and naming a 30 May 1982 New York Times column that quotes Joe Lieberman as the earliest exact-wording instance it could find in the Times.
Barry Popik on ADS-L, 10 October 1999listserv.linguistlist.org

The original American Dialect Society posting with the New York Post citation (4 Sept 1973, p. 64, col. 1) and the reference-book entries that date the line to 1973.
The Yogi Book: I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said! (Workman, 1998)archive.org

Catalogue record and borrowable scan of the book in which Berra himself prints the line. Confirms Workman Publishing, 1998.
Yogi Berra — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Career record and the 1973 Mets season: 9½ games back in July, then the NL East title and a World Series appearance.

The man credited

Who he was

Yogi Berra

1925–2015 · Yankees catcher, three-time AL MVP, Mets manager

Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra caught for the New York Yankees from 1946 to 1963, won ten World Series titles as a player — more than anyone in major-league history — took three American League MVP awards (1951, 1954, 1955), made 18 All-Star teams, and entered the Hall of Fame in 1972. He then managed: the Yankees in 1964, the Mets from 1972 to 1975, and the Yankees again in 1984–85. He became at least as famous for his looping, self-cancelling one-liners, and was unusually honest about how slippery the record was — he titled his own 1998 collection I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said!

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best available source

Yogi Berra, The Yogi Book: I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said! (New York: Workman Publishing, 1998), where Berra prints the line and dates it to the Mets' 1973 pennant race. No 1973 source has been found containing the exact wording; the closest contemporaneous remark on record is Berra in the New York Post, September 4, 1973, p. 64: "Yeah, it's running out, but you're still not out of it until it's automatic." Citation chronology per Barry Popik, "It ain't over 'til it's over," The Big Apple.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘It ain't over till it's over’?” Last verified 7 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/it-aint-over-till-its-over/

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