MLB Has Been Full of Eccentric Ballplayers, Fans Can Be Just as Superstitious

I have a confession to make: I am the reason the Giants lost the 2002 World Series.  I broke my superstition and the Giants lost.  I learned my lesson though, because I am also the reason the Giants won the 2010 World Series.  I made all the right decisions on where to watch which game while doing what and the Giants won it all.  Baseball fans and baseball players don't have a lot in common, but each is susceptible to superstitions, reasonable or not.

In 1885, when Mickey Welch took the mound for the New York Gothams, odds are he followed a routine that he kept for all of his starts.  Whether he wore the same pair of socks, walked to the mound the same way or stepped on or over the foul line, he had at least one superstition that he believed in wholeheartedly.  Show me a baseball player and I'll show you someone who believes in a jinx, the occult or just plain old good and bad luck.

Through the years, players have had their idiosyncrasies that no one would dare question.  Curt Leskanic shaved his pitching arm, claiming that it cut down on drag and, in turn, added speed to his pitches.  Turk Wendell chewed black licorice and brushed his teeth in the dugout between every inning, not to mention the jump/hop/leg lift/half turn over the foul line that he executed each trip to and from the mound, every inning.

Jim Palmer had to eat pancakes before each of his starts, and then there's Wade Boggs. By all accounts, Wade Boggs may have been the most superstitious baseball player ever.  Wade Boggs is an interesting study because the majority of his idiosyncrasies were not widely reported until after his playing days were over.  Wade Boggs ate chicken before every single game and had to touch every step in the dugout before the game, among many other routines that took place for hours before a game.

Clearly, Boggs believed in what he was doing, and to that end I'd have to say it worked as he is one the best hitters to ever live.  Other players, like Turk Wendell, were so overt with their act that one had to wonder if it wasn't all for show and attention.  I saw an interview with Wendell once that convinced me that he really did believe in what he was doing and in his case I'd have to say that it didn't quite work out the way he had planned.

I had a chance to talk to Curt Leskanic in 1993 at a Giants game.  I asked him if he really believed that shaving the hair off his arm cut down on wind drag, thus allowing him to throw the ball faster.  Leskanic looked at me like I was certifiably crazy and said "it's a clear matter of physics."  How could I argue with that?

Superstitions are not only for ballplayers, though; fans are just as bad or, in many cases, worse.  Speaking from experience, I know that fans can be a bit loony when it comes to superstitions.  I have gone so far as to allocate a block of games to certain shirts or jerseys and then counted the wins and losses for those articles of inanimate clothing.  I was trying to determine a pattern that would give the team the best chance to win...BASED ON WHAT SHIRT I WAS WEARING!

It sounds a bit eccentric, and I'll admit that was going a bit far, but I believed it.  During the postseason of 2002, I held the same baseball in my hand the same way for every inning of every postseason game until Game 7 of the World Series.  Obviously, they didn't win every game, but holding that ball the way I did put them within a matter of outs from winning before fate reared its very ugly head.

For Game 7, I panicked.  Instead of trusting in the superstition that I had developed, I tried to change everything by determining that the process had run its course and there was no luck left in the ball.  In an act of pure desperation, I tried everything imaginable with that ball and nothing worked.  Perhaps I should have trusted it; perhaps that would have changed history.

Wait a minute now, before you send me off to the funny farm, let me say this...I know this is all irrational.  I know that none of this has anything to do with the outcome of the games or the series.  Case in point; fast forward eight years to the 2010 postseason.

The Giants were finally back in the tournament, and what is the first thing I did?  Of course, I dug out that same old baseball, shoved it deep into my hand and started watching the games.  I once again fell into the same routine from 2002 with that ball and this time, it worked!  I now know that I cost the team the title in 2002 by not trusting the ball!

Another example happened in Game 6 of the NLCS.  I began watching the game at my house and just never got a good feeling from the start.  The team looked likely to fall apart early, so I got in my car and drove to my friend Bob's house to change the luck.  Now, keep in mind that I have never had success watching Giants games at Bob's house.  Over the course of several years, my record of watching games at his house was something like 2-10 with no sign of getting better.  It was where I felt I had to be that night though, and so off I went without even letting him know and with ball in hand.

Almost immediately upon my arrival at Bob's house, the Giants bullpen settled the game down, the Giants tied the game up and the tension-filled game crawled into the later innings.  I paced and I prayed, and the whole time I clutched that baseball, never moving it from where it rested in my hand, causing the seams to embed themselves in my palm.

I think we all remember the outcome of that game, and I know that had I not left my house and taken the unorthodox step of going to Bob's house, the Giants would not have won that game.

One famous superstition that is found in the dugout and in the stands and living rooms is no-hitter jinx.  If a pitcher is throwing a no-hitter, it is common knowledge that someone who is on that pitcher's team or is a fan of that team simply does not say the words "no-hitter."  You don't say it, think it or write it.  You don't even look someone in the eye who might also be thinking "no-hitter," or that will end the no-hit bid, no question.

For years, the Giants had not thrown a no-hitter and I blamed the announcers.  For all the great things about Mike Krukow, I'll never understand how he could possibly say the words "no-hitter" during a Giants bid to throw one, yet every time there was a chance, he would say it!  In July of 2009, Jonathan Sanchez was tossing a gem.  He was so good that I didn't realize what was happening until the seventh inning and I didn't even realize until after the game that he had actually thrown a perfect game if not for Juan Uribe's error. 

My ignorance may have stemmed from the fact that as soon as I realized what was happening, I turned the volume off—there was no way the announcers were going to ruin this one.  Guess what?  Sanchez threw the first no-hitter for the Giants in ages and guess who was responsible for it?  Me.

I might be crazy, but so are many of the greatest ballplayers of all time, so I have no problem being that kind of crazy.