In 2015, Major League Baseball held an online, fan-driven vote to determine the greatest living players of all time, the results of which were revealed at that year’s All-Star Game. Once the ballots were cast and counted and the mid-summer classic finally rolled around, Hank Aaron (one time holder of the career home run record), Sandy Koufax (the first pitcher the throw four no-hitters and win three Cy Young Awards), Johnny Bench (a ten-time Gold Glove winner who became the first catcher to lead the league in home runs), and Willie Mays (a 24-time All Star and two-time MVP who ranked in the top ten of most offensive categories by the time of his retirement) triumphantly strode together onto the field at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati to bask in the applause and adulation of the baseball viewing public. But watching from his home in Montclair, New Jersey was Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra, one of the most decorated and celebrated baseball players of all time. 

This snub acts as the framing device for It Ain’t’ Over, a Sean Mullin-directed documentary that both celebrates Berra’s legacy and argues that, despite his unassailable record, he has been unfairly remembered as a personality first, and a player second. It’s difficult to dispute that Berra, who passed away mere months after the 2015 All-Star Game, should have been given more serious consideration for this baseball Mount Rushmore. The longtime New York Yankees catcher finished top five in MVP voting in every season between 1950 and 1956, winning the award three times. In that same time period, he hit a staggering 191 home runs (he would hit 358 over his 19 year career) and 756 runs batted in (he’d hit 1,430 total), all while striking out only 166 times (for comparison, Mike Trout, one of the best baseball players currently playing and also the recipient of three MVP awards, averages 108 strikeouts per season). He was also heart and soul of one of the Yankees’ most dominant eras, winning 10 World Series rings as a player and another three as a member of the Yankees’ and New York Mets’ coaching staff for a total of thirteen World Series titles, a record that will almost certainly go unmatched. It’s also impossible to overstate the effect he had on the culture of baseball and America at large via his television appearances, ad work, and his trademark “Yogisms,” paradoxically true sayings like “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” and the titular “it ain’t over til it’s over,” many of which have probably been repeated by people who have never even watched a full baseball game.

Mullin presents Berra’s life story through a breezy series of archival footage, interviews, and insert shots that make the case for him as a uniquely great player and the embodiment of the American Dream. The son of Italian immigrants, the short, stocky Berra grew up in the outrageously named “Dago Hill” neighborhood of St. Louis, where he was plucked out of amateur ball by the Yankees for a mere $500 signing bonus, beginning his legendary career after a stint in the Navy that saw him serve as a machine gunner during D-Day. Interviewees in the film include former Berra teammates like Héctor Lopéz and Bobby Richardson, players who played for him during his managerial career like Willie Randolph and Ron Guidry, famous friends like Billy Crystal, a parade of baseball historians and experts, and members of Berra’s family. These interviewees not only deliver Berra’s astounding statistics and recall some of the most famous episodes of his career, but they also demonstrate what a charmed life the catcher led. To indulge in a tired sports cliche, the number of friends and colleagues who go to bat for Yogi throughout the documentary provide credence to the notion that he wasn’t just a Hall of Fame player, but a Hall of Fame person as well.

Ironically, this sunny effusiveness is one of the documentary’s shortcomings. Story thrives on conflict, and according to It Ain’t Over, the conflict in Berra’s life was far overshadowed by his sporting achievements and his mostly drama-free personal life. The most compelling part of the documentary concerns Berra’s fraught relationship with Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who fired Berra as manager through a subordinate in 1985, a sign of disrespect that prompted Berra to swear he would never return to Yankee Stadium so long as Steinbrenner owned the team. It’s a fascinating story of ego and betrayal – or at least it has the potential to be. Unfortunately, there’s no candid, behind the scenes footage of either Berra or Steinbrenner discussing the issue, no revelations from anyone who was in the room when the two finally made up in the late 90s – just people repeating what was already mostly public information. This light touch is also applied to the brief discussion of Berra’s son Dale, who’s own promising baseball career was derailed by cocaine addiction. The 1985 drug trials that revealed cocaine use was rampant among the major leaguers is considered one of the biggest scandals in baseball history – but in It Ain’t Over, it’s treated as Berra-centric conflict that was resolved after Yogi gave his son a firm talking too.

These episodes are the kinds of low points in a person’s life from which a documentarian should be able to draw rich, affecting detail. One of my favorite baseball documentaries is No No, which dives deep into the struggles and influence of Dock Ellis, an All-Star pitcher who allegedly threw a no-hitter while high on LSD. In addition to giving a full account of Ellis’ life and career, No No also uses the pitcher as a lens through which to view baseball’s muddled history with race and drugs, using tape recorded interviews with Ellis to devastating effect. We get no similar insights from It Ain’t Over partly because Berra did not appear to have the dark side that Ellis did, and partly because there are no similarly revealing interviews or documents that the filmmakers have access to. Instead, we’re left to rely on the testament of his friend and family who all swear that he was a swell guy. I have no doubt that he was, but the end result is a film in which we learn a lot about Yogi Berra without ever truly getting to know him.

I also couldn’t help but be put off by the mild indignation displayed by some of the interview subjects, particularly Lindsay Berra, Yogi’s granddaughter and the film’s executive producer, regarding the alleged disrespect Berra has suffered in the public’s memory. While Berra’s absence from the “greatest living players” lineup is an effective starting point, the back third of the documentary details Berra’s family’s efforts to try and finally get him a Purple Heart (Berra reportedly never filed the paperwork to receive the medal because he didn’t want to upset his mother) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (which was only made possible by an 11th hour surge of an online poll). Berra is no doubt worthy of both honors – but insisting over and over again that a man who has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, has had his number retired by the most successful franchise in American professional sports, has his own museum, and parlayed his unique personality into a lucrative post-playing career has somehow been disrespected strains credulity. Living well is the best revenge, and if It Ain’t Over makes anything clear, it’s that Yogi Berra lived well both on and off the field. That’s still a legacy worth celebrating, no matter what a couple million All-Star voters say.