A Player on a Streak Has To Respect The Streak

I think anyone who has ever followed sports knows there's a great deal of superstition involved.  From playoff beards to lucky shorts, rally caps to daily routines, black cats, Billy goats, broken and unbroken curses. 

No one can prove the validity of it all, but it's there.  How many times have you sat watching a game and the announcer says something like, "he hasn't missed one all year," and then he does.  They laugh and you want to reach out and strangle the guy. 

In 2003 I was watching the Cubs play the Marlins at a friend's house.  The Cubs were up, it was late in the game and he says, "Let's go to the store, I wanna get an ice cream sandwich.  This game is over."  Minutes later the Earth opened up and swallowed my dreams of watching them in the World Series whole.  To this day I won't talk to my friend while the Cubs are playing.

As I write this, I'm in the midst of a similar dilemma.  Like any fan, I want to get shirts and jerseys and hats and all that fun stuff.  A few years ago, before online shopping made everything possible, I'd been hounding the owner of a local sports store every week for about four years to get me some Los Angeles Clippers gear.  He kept telling me he couldn't find anything, there doesn't seem to be anything available, his distributors don't have anything in stock; it was really pretty frustrating. 

One day he calls and to my surprise, says he got something in.  I run to the store and there it was, a massive, 4XL, Darius Miles road red replica Clippers jersey.  Even though the thing was terribly overpriced and so large it fringed on unwearable, I bought it.  Miles was my favorite Clipper at the time, and it's not like I had any other option. 

Plus, if I turned it down, the guy might kill me for sticking him with a jersey no one in their right mind in Pennsylvania would want.  So I went home, broke out the scissors and the needle and thread, cut it up, took it in and bingo, I had a D-Miles Clippers jersey.  It looked like hell, but whatever.

Not long after I had the jersey, I turned on SportsCenter one night to find Darius Miles had been traded to the Cavs for Andre Miller.  It was depressing.  Almost immediately after that his career went to pot; he was constantly hurt and now is barely an afterthought in the league.

So here I am, many years later, sitting over a computer with an incredible deal on Chicago Cubs authentic jerseys staring me in the face.  Can I risk bringing the same misfortune on Ryan Theriot?  Can I forgive myself if I bring more sorrow to Cubs fans?  Can I pass on such a great deal?