TORONTO — He looked more like a guy who sold hot dogs outside a stadium than a guy who won 10 World Series inside.

He sounded more like an eighth-grade dropout — which he was — than a man who would be quoted with greater frequency than popes and presidents.

He carried himself more like the most head-down, slump-shouldered, ordinary person on the planet than someone who won a Purple Heart, might just be the greatest catcher ever and whose mere presence at a ballpark could make everyone there smile.

Yogi Berra was 90 when he died. But when you lead this extraordinary a life, then it is never really over, even when it is over.

His legend, sayings and just the goodwill he engendered remain — at the very least — part of baseball forever and, more particularly, embedded in the history of the Yankees.

If you stood, late in Berra’s life, next to the man you just could not imagine this guy – his listed playing height was 5-foot-7, but no way – could conceivably have hit 358 homers, won three MVPs and made 18 All-Star teams. But being underestimated was one of Berra’s assets.

It is possible no person – not just player – did more with less. He was born poor to Italian immigrant parents in St. Louis and died so famous that just a single word – Yogi – conjured a person, an era and happiness. He was a decorated World War II solider who served as a gunner on a Navy boat during the storming of Omaha Beach and as the relentless backbone during a Yankee run from 1949-64 in which they played in 14 World Series.

From his days as player, manager, coach and ultimately something akin to goodwill icon, Berra linked 65 years of Yankee greatness from DiMaggio to Mantle to Reggie to Mattingly to Jeter.

He was often the co-star as a player. But what a co-star. He was deceptively athletic, intuitively bright on a diamond, the rare player who could hit bad pitches for good results and ultimately a Hall of Famer.

The constant in his success was his humility about it – you could glorify Berra’s life from The Hill in St. Louis to Normandy to Cooperstown, but he wouldn’t. But he was as prideful as he was modest.

So when George Steinbrenner promised Berra he would manage the Yankees for the entire 1985 season and fired him 16 games through an underling and not face to face, Berra vowed never to return to Yankees Stadium. And didn’t for the next 14 years. It was Steve Jobs not touching a computer.

Berra had helped bring the mystique and aura to that building and his distance from it — and the franchise — was wrong, if for no other reason than that in his twilight, Berra could not receive the ovations and love he had earned.

In January 1999, Steinbrenner met face to face with Berra to apologize, and what the rapprochement permitted was a long, deserved goodbye. Berra seemed to be making up for lost time, appearing constantly at the park, forming bonds, in particular, with Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Joe Torre during the most recent Yankee dynasty.

Jeter used to say his goal was to exceed Berra’s 10 championship rings. He had a great career and only got halfway there.

In spring training, former players would begin dribbling in as celebrity coaches, but only one would create the persistent question: “When is he coming?” That was for Yogi. People wanted to see him, be around him, hear his latest beautiful manglings of the English language. Just the mention of his name and that he was coming would engender joy. How many people can do that?

Berra was a character with character who, by the end, had become such a caricature that you could forget that the cornerstone of his fame was that he was one of the most durable, excellent, winning players in baseball history.

He certainly was not going to remind you as he shuffled by with a quick handshake or kind word or cheeks-raised smile accentuating the prominent nose and — even late in life — perceptive eyes.

Yogi Berra passed away at 90.

It is not over.