RubySoho
Winston
Superstitions In Baseball: Smart People Acting Dumb
June 12th 2007 19:20
Today I will speak of matters most arcane. You will hear of magical forces and whimsical tales. We will talk of rally caps and the Curse of the Bambino. Yes, let us learn now of baseball superstitions, and why otherwise sane people tend to act in fairly ludicrous ways when a game is on the line.
First thing, full disclosure. I am a Red Sox fan. For those people reading this who are not from the Boston area, or not from the States, let me clarify what that means. Being a Red Sox fan historically has meant being acquainted with soul-crushing defeat. It has meant being imbued with the knowledge that it's never too late to lose. Fortunately, that has changed in the last several years. The Red Sox are one of the preeminent teams in Major League Baseball, and their storied rivalry with the New York Yankees is the stuff sports legends are made of. Heck, they even won the World Series in 2004, after an 86 year drought (more on that later). So now, being a Red Sox fan equates to rooting for a winning team. Of course, there's still a bit of fatalism intermingled with this newfound optimism. Old habits die hard.
All of the above is just to clarify that I am not insulated from this topic. On the contrary, I am just as guilty of baseball superstitions as anyone. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am not cut from superstitious or mystical cloth, but when it's the 9th inning and your team is trailing by one run with the bases loaded.....aw, who needs common sense, anyway?
I will get to my own baseball silliness shortly. First, I want to touch a little bit on general superstitions in baseball. Some of these types of behaviors are not limited to baseball, but have corollaries in all pro sports. Here's a short list, provided by Answers.com:
* Not stepping on the foul line when taking the field.
* Not talking about a no-hitter or perfect game in progress
* "Statting" a player by mentioning his excellent statistics in this situation is seen to jinx that player.
* A lucky bat or glove.
* Equipment related (most famous being Craig Biggio who does not wash his batting helmet for the entire season)
* Not talking about the outcome of a 7 game series before it is over.
* Not shaving after the first postseason win
* Chewing only one wad of gum per game
* Tapping one's bat onto the home plate before an at-bat
* Drawing in the batter's box before each at-bat
Strange, eh? Obviously, none of these things makes the slightest difference as to the outcome of a game. Or do they? Obviously, the actions in and of themselves have no effect, but if a player thinks they do, then not performing these odd behaviors might have an adverse affect on performance. In short, not carrying out these crazy actions can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I want to use a famous Red Sox player as an example, because he provides so many different behaviors. I am posting a paragraph here from thebestsportsblog.com
regarding former Red Sox 3rd baseman, Wade Boggs. This site provides a great, concise explanation of Wade's "habits", but most of these items are well known to us here anyway. Click on the link for some other amusing stories of superstitious player behavior.
Wade Boggs. Where do I begin. He ate chicken before every game, woke up at the same time every day, took exactly 150 ground balls in practice, took batting practice at 5:17 and ran sprints at 7:17. His route to and from his position in the field beat a path to the home dugout, and he drew the Hebrew word “n-Chai" (meaning “life”) in the batter’s box before each at-bat (Boggs is not Jewish). He always ended his pregame infield practice by stepping, in order, on the third-, second- and first-base bags, stepping on the baseline, taking two steps in the coach’s box and trotting to the dugout in exactly four steps.
Man oh man, is that a lot of needless craziness to pack in before a game or what? And yet, polls have shown that the vast majority of baseball players exhibit some sort of superstitious behavior. Wade is certainly not alone.
And then, there's the fans. Rally caps, rally monkeys, towels, signs, chants.....the list of odd fan behavior goes on and on. Perhaps the best example is one with which I'm quite familiar: the Curse of the Bambino.
The Curse of the Bambino harkens back to the early days of baseball, and is what defined the history between the Red Sox and the Yankees. According to baseball lore, Babe Ruth helped pitch the Red Sox to World Series victories in 1915, 1916, and 1918. Up to this point, the Yankees had never won a World Series. In order to finance a Broadway musical, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee traded the Babe to the Yankees in 1920. From that point on, the Yankees went on to win 26 World Series, while the Red Sox won none, getting to the Series four times and losing each time in 7 games.
After awhile, Yankees fans simply adored taunting the Red Sox with pictures of the Babe and chants of '1918!' In fact, on their end there could hardly be said to BE a rivalry. After all, the Red Sox couldn't win a World Series to save their lives, and the Yankees had more championship rings than they knew what to do with. Red Sox fans truly began to think of their team as 'cursed'.
Now, how ludicrous is this? The idea that a team loses, not because of inferior rosters, poor management, or a lack of drive, but because of some supernatural force that prevents them from achieving victory is patently absurd. So you'd think, anyway. In Boston, it was accepted as established truth. It was with this background that the Sox inexplicably found themselves in the ALCS (American League Championship Series, the last step before the World Series) against the Yankees in 2004. True to form, they had lost the ALCS the year before to the Yankees in 7 games. This time, they found themselves down 3 games to 0. The Yankees only had to win one more game (the ALCS and World Series both operating as 'best of 7' contests) to clinch the ALCS title and proceed to the World Series. In the history of Major League Baseball, a game with 100 years of precedent behind it, never had a team come back from a 3-0 deficit in the postseason. Ever.
I had no intention of watching Game 4. Why stay up until midnight watching the Sox get beat, just to end up going to bed pissed off? Somehow, though, I got sucked into watching. The game went on....and on....extra innings....holy crap. We won. Against all the odds, against the Yankees' best closing pitcher, with their futures hanging by a thread, the Red Sox pulled it off. Well, all of the sudden Red Sox Nation came alive with positive thinking. And with that came superstition by the boatload. Suddenly, the new rallying cry was to "Reverse the curse".
I would like to say that I did not succumb to this, but that would be lying. I was right there in the fantasy muck with everyone else. For example, the ALCS takes place in October. Halloween being one of my favorite holidays, we had lots of decorations, candles etc. around our home. During Game 4, there were 17 candles we had lit, in various decorations. Game 5 came, and I felt compelled to light all the same candles again. Why? Who the hell knows. I fell into magical thinking, acting as though some completely unrelated actions on my part had the power to influence events outside of my control. The Sox won game 5.
Game 6 came, and those candles were lit. During this series, I had also taken to wearing my hat as a 'rally cap' during the games. That's when you turn your baseball cap inside out and upside down, and wear it that way. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. But everyone else was doing it, and at that point I would have hired a shaman or sacrificed a sheep to Zeus if I'd thought it would help us beat the Yankees. The Sox won Game 6.
By Game 7, fully confident in our magic powers, Red Sox nation sat back and watched as the Red Sox beat the Yankees and won the ALCS, thereby completing the greatest comeback in sports history, along with handing out the worst collapse in the annals of baseball. It was incredible, improbable, remarkable...you name it. Looking back, it was due to the chemistry of the team, pitching breakdowns on the Yankees side, guts, and luck. It was NOT due to candles or hats worn improperly, or pictures of Babe Ruth. But man, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't dare.
So there it is. Superstition can affect even the staunchest proponent of rational thought. When you want something bad enough, it's easy to fall into it. And, when something seems to reinforce that behavior, it's easy to keep it up. It certainly is not unique to baseball. We all have the ability to compartmentalize our thinking, partitioning off certain ideas from the rest of our logical minds. This trait of ours, this ability to insulate certain ideas from reason, has played a major role in our society. There are lots of beliefs which don't really stand up under scrutiny today, but these beliefs are deeply cherished by some people. Logic gets turned off, comfort and the illusion of control gets turned on. We're all guilty of it in one way or another.
Looking back on it now, I have to shake my head and wonder why I thought I was making some sort of difference back in 2004. I'll keep thinking that all the way until the next time the Sox are in the postseason. Then, my hat goes upside down and candles will be lit. Better safe than sorry, right?
First thing, full disclosure. I am a Red Sox fan. For those people reading this who are not from the Boston area, or not from the States, let me clarify what that means. Being a Red Sox fan historically has meant being acquainted with soul-crushing defeat. It has meant being imbued with the knowledge that it's never too late to lose. Fortunately, that has changed in the last several years. The Red Sox are one of the preeminent teams in Major League Baseball, and their storied rivalry with the New York Yankees is the stuff sports legends are made of. Heck, they even won the World Series in 2004, after an 86 year drought (more on that later). So now, being a Red Sox fan equates to rooting for a winning team. Of course, there's still a bit of fatalism intermingled with this newfound optimism. Old habits die hard.
All of the above is just to clarify that I am not insulated from this topic. On the contrary, I am just as guilty of baseball superstitions as anyone. Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am not cut from superstitious or mystical cloth, but when it's the 9th inning and your team is trailing by one run with the bases loaded.....aw, who needs common sense, anyway?
I will get to my own baseball silliness shortly. First, I want to touch a little bit on general superstitions in baseball. Some of these types of behaviors are not limited to baseball, but have corollaries in all pro sports. Here's a short list, provided by Answers.com:
* Not stepping on the foul line when taking the field.
* Not talking about a no-hitter or perfect game in progress
* "Statting" a player by mentioning his excellent statistics in this situation is seen to jinx that player.
* A lucky bat or glove.
* Equipment related (most famous being Craig Biggio who does not wash his batting helmet for the entire season)
* Not talking about the outcome of a 7 game series before it is over.
* Not shaving after the first postseason win
* Chewing only one wad of gum per game
* Tapping one's bat onto the home plate before an at-bat
* Drawing in the batter's box before each at-bat
Strange, eh? Obviously, none of these things makes the slightest difference as to the outcome of a game. Or do they? Obviously, the actions in and of themselves have no effect, but if a player thinks they do, then not performing these odd behaviors might have an adverse affect on performance. In short, not carrying out these crazy actions can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I want to use a famous Red Sox player as an example, because he provides so many different behaviors. I am posting a paragraph here from thebestsportsblog.com
regarding former Red Sox 3rd baseman, Wade Boggs. This site provides a great, concise explanation of Wade's "habits", but most of these items are well known to us here anyway. Click on the link for some other amusing stories of superstitious player behavior.
Wade Boggs. Where do I begin. He ate chicken before every game, woke up at the same time every day, took exactly 150 ground balls in practice, took batting practice at 5:17 and ran sprints at 7:17. His route to and from his position in the field beat a path to the home dugout, and he drew the Hebrew word “n-Chai" (meaning “life”) in the batter’s box before each at-bat (Boggs is not Jewish). He always ended his pregame infield practice by stepping, in order, on the third-, second- and first-base bags, stepping on the baseline, taking two steps in the coach’s box and trotting to the dugout in exactly four steps.
Man oh man, is that a lot of needless craziness to pack in before a game or what? And yet, polls have shown that the vast majority of baseball players exhibit some sort of superstitious behavior. Wade is certainly not alone.
And then, there's the fans. Rally caps, rally monkeys, towels, signs, chants.....the list of odd fan behavior goes on and on. Perhaps the best example is one with which I'm quite familiar: the Curse of the Bambino.
The Curse of the Bambino harkens back to the early days of baseball, and is what defined the history between the Red Sox and the Yankees. According to baseball lore, Babe Ruth helped pitch the Red Sox to World Series victories in 1915, 1916, and 1918. Up to this point, the Yankees had never won a World Series. In order to finance a Broadway musical, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee traded the Babe to the Yankees in 1920. From that point on, the Yankees went on to win 26 World Series, while the Red Sox won none, getting to the Series four times and losing each time in 7 games.
After awhile, Yankees fans simply adored taunting the Red Sox with pictures of the Babe and chants of '1918!' In fact, on their end there could hardly be said to BE a rivalry. After all, the Red Sox couldn't win a World Series to save their lives, and the Yankees had more championship rings than they knew what to do with. Red Sox fans truly began to think of their team as 'cursed'.
Now, how ludicrous is this? The idea that a team loses, not because of inferior rosters, poor management, or a lack of drive, but because of some supernatural force that prevents them from achieving victory is patently absurd. So you'd think, anyway. In Boston, it was accepted as established truth. It was with this background that the Sox inexplicably found themselves in the ALCS (American League Championship Series, the last step before the World Series) against the Yankees in 2004. True to form, they had lost the ALCS the year before to the Yankees in 7 games. This time, they found themselves down 3 games to 0. The Yankees only had to win one more game (the ALCS and World Series both operating as 'best of 7' contests) to clinch the ALCS title and proceed to the World Series. In the history of Major League Baseball, a game with 100 years of precedent behind it, never had a team come back from a 3-0 deficit in the postseason. Ever.
I had no intention of watching Game 4. Why stay up until midnight watching the Sox get beat, just to end up going to bed pissed off? Somehow, though, I got sucked into watching. The game went on....and on....extra innings....holy crap. We won. Against all the odds, against the Yankees' best closing pitcher, with their futures hanging by a thread, the Red Sox pulled it off. Well, all of the sudden Red Sox Nation came alive with positive thinking. And with that came superstition by the boatload. Suddenly, the new rallying cry was to "Reverse the curse".
I would like to say that I did not succumb to this, but that would be lying. I was right there in the fantasy muck with everyone else. For example, the ALCS takes place in October. Halloween being one of my favorite holidays, we had lots of decorations, candles etc. around our home. During Game 4, there were 17 candles we had lit, in various decorations. Game 5 came, and I felt compelled to light all the same candles again. Why? Who the hell knows. I fell into magical thinking, acting as though some completely unrelated actions on my part had the power to influence events outside of my control. The Sox won game 5.
Game 6 came, and those candles were lit. During this series, I had also taken to wearing my hat as a 'rally cap' during the games. That's when you turn your baseball cap inside out and upside down, and wear it that way. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. But everyone else was doing it, and at that point I would have hired a shaman or sacrificed a sheep to Zeus if I'd thought it would help us beat the Yankees. The Sox won Game 6.
By Game 7, fully confident in our magic powers, Red Sox nation sat back and watched as the Red Sox beat the Yankees and won the ALCS, thereby completing the greatest comeback in sports history, along with handing out the worst collapse in the annals of baseball. It was incredible, improbable, remarkable...you name it. Looking back, it was due to the chemistry of the team, pitching breakdowns on the Yankees side, guts, and luck. It was NOT due to candles or hats worn improperly, or pictures of Babe Ruth. But man, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't dare.
So there it is. Superstition can affect even the staunchest proponent of rational thought. When you want something bad enough, it's easy to fall into it. And, when something seems to reinforce that behavior, it's easy to keep it up. It certainly is not unique to baseball. We all have the ability to compartmentalize our thinking, partitioning off certain ideas from the rest of our logical minds. This trait of ours, this ability to insulate certain ideas from reason, has played a major role in our society. There are lots of beliefs which don't really stand up under scrutiny today, but these beliefs are deeply cherished by some people. Logic gets turned off, comfort and the illusion of control gets turned on. We're all guilty of it in one way or another.
Looking back on it now, I have to shake my head and wonder why I thought I was making some sort of difference back in 2004. I'll keep thinking that all the way until the next time the Sox are in the postseason. Then, my hat goes upside down and candles will be lit. Better safe than sorry, right?
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