Even people who are not sports fans likely know, if they are of a certain age, Yogi Berra.

Not necessarily as the Hall of Fame baseball catcher who was the rock of the 1950s New York Yankees championship teams, but as a ubiquitous pitchman and media celebrity from the 1950s through the 2000s, known for hisYogi-isms:

“It ain’t over till it’s over.”

“It’s like deja vu all over again.”

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

But Sean Mullin’s documentary “It Ain’t Over” is literally inside baseball. The film is essentially a Berra family project, an attempt to rehabilitate the professional reputation of someone who often doesn’t get his due as a player.

Not that that’s a bad thing. Packed with archival footage and recent interviews with great players of the past (Bobby Richardson,Don Mattingly,Derek Jeter),famous broadcasters(Vin Scully,Bob Costas) and one celebrity fan(Billy Crystal),这是一个有趣的骑棒球fans and nostalgics.

The film, in several Bay Area theaters including the AMC Metreon and Regal Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco on Friday, May 19, was conceived in 2015, when granddaughter Lindsay Berra, an executive producer, was miffed that a fan poll to determine the four greatest living baseball players conducted by Major League Baseball, which drew 25 million votes but overlooked her grandfather. (The winners:San Francisco Giants great Willie Mays,Hank Aaron,Sandy KoufaxandJohnny Bench.It was likely Bench, the dominant catcher of the 1970s, who drew her ire.)

The other insult came after Yogi Berra’sdeath a few months later,at age 90, when an Associated Press headline announced that “Yogi Bear” had died, accidentally confusing his name with the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character inspired by the player.

“Mantle was Elvis in pinstripes,” said Crystal, referring to Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle, the prolific home-run hitter on those New York teams of the ’50s and early ’60s, in the documentary. “Yogi was like Sancho Panza.”

It’s true. At 5-foot-7, looking nothing like a dashing matinee idol such as Mickey Mantle or past Yankees great and San Francisco iconJoe DiMaggio,but always good-humored, Berra had a lot in common with Miguel de Cervantes’ sidekick in “Don Quixote.” Ever media savvy, Berra embraced and honed his image, so some of that is on him.

He might have become more famous off the baseball field than on it, but there’s no denying that he was a great player, and “It Ain’t Over” provides an excellent reminder.

Reach G. Allen Johnson:ajohnson@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BRFilmsAllen