The other half is physical.90 percent of the game is half-mental.
Not a baseball person but I know who he was. But I heard an interview today with someone associated with him. They said Yogi admitted on the Tonight Show with Carson that the whole "Yogism" thing started because of his tendency to swear in every sentence. When doing radio interviews he would catch himself before the curse and the correction would always come out with an awkward statement. This eventually became his schtick and he played into it. He was aware of a lot of what he was saying. I think he was a lot smarter than he appeared.
RIP Yogi. The best bad ball hitter in history. They were all strikes to Yogi and he more foul ball HRs than anyone.
Was having dinner in an Italian restaurant in Montclair and he and his wife Carman were also having dinner. My waiter told me that they come in every Thursday night (it was Thursday) and said that they were 2 of the nicest people he ever served. I was seated on the other side of the restaurant and i didn't talk to him but I was surprised at how short he was; looked to be about 5'7".
You mentioned Irv Noren made me think of Norm Sieburn for some reason. I was at the WS game when he made 3 errors in 1 inning in LF. Had long forgotten about that.As a result of his swinging at everything, Berra had a pretty low walk rate, never topping 66 in a season. But generally, guys who swing at everything strike out a fair amount, which Berra almost NEVER did. Never even 40 k's in a season. He had five seasons with more home runs than strikeouts, which was utterly absurd even then. To give you an idea of how peculiar he was, in 1952, he led the Yankees in home runs (remember he was playing with Mickey Mantle at the time) with 30, and was tenth on the team in strikeouts, with 24, behind the other 7 starting position players, utility infielder Irv Noren, and pitcher Vic Raschi, who 'bested' Berra's strikeout total in 88 PA's, to Berra's 603.