There is something unique about the need for, belief in and use of superstition in the game of baseball.
More than any other sport, perhaps because of its long tradition or slow pace, baseball is rich in traditions and practices that seem strange to those who have never played the game.
A batter tapping the shin guards of a catcher as a greeting at the start of a Major League game; college players holding their caps upside down in the dugout and shaking them in the hopes of encouraging a late-inning rally; fans wearing the same outfit to a game until a team loses. It’s all kind of strange and endearing at the same time.
Superstition plays a role at all levels of baseball. When my sons played Little League it was common practice to stand the bat of a player who had just hit a homerun barrel down on home plate as he circled the bases. In high school, the mind games that teams try on themselves and play on each other get more elaborate.
For example, the Baler varsity team has dubbed this month “Moustache March.” A few players have decided that they will let their teenage moustaches sprout all month in a sign of team unity. The hope is that the baseball gods will respond to the effort with some victories.
A week into the month, and some players are starting to look like they are starring in a baseball movie from the 1970s. My son’s stache, for one, is growing rapidly and looking cheesier by the day. That’s the point.
Pro hockey players grow playoff beards until their team is eliminated. Some football players wear the same shirt under their jersey until they lose. The Balers are hoping that they can wring some victories
out of Moustache March as the league season gets under way.
Last year’s team that rode a late-season surge all the way to the Central Coast Section championship game had myriad superstitions, pre-game rituals and in-game chants that they employed to keep the mood light and the luck going.
This year’s boys’ varsity basketball team kept it a bit more subtle, such as wearing all black to school the day they played league rival Palma. One player wore the opposing team’s colors to school on every game day, such as a yellow tie with a purple shirt when they played Salinas or a green shirt for the Alisal game.
Did it work? Who knows? The team finished second in the league and made it to the final four in the CCS playoffs, so it didn’t hurt.
As the scorekeeper for that team this year, I used the same pencil to keep the book throughout the playoffs and after finding a heads-up penny the day of a playoff game I kept it in my pocket that night and the team won. I brought it with me to the scorer’s table for the next game and the Balers lost, so it had obviously been a one-game good luck charm.
When I played baseball, I would never step on the foul lines when I ran onto the field. It was sort of the step on a crack, break your mother’s back philosophy. Now that I’m a coach, I still try to avoid stepping on the lines. Using baseball logic, I believe that practice helps our team avoid bad luck. Other coaches and players on the team don’t follow this practice, as far as I can tell, so logic would say that their stepping on the lines would cancel out the good mojo that my line avoidance brought to the team.
But logic doesn’t apply to superstition.
Whether it’s a moustache or a chalk line or a game-day outfit, good fortune is in the mind of the believer. These quirky and sometimes downright weird practices probably don’t impact the outcome of a game but not doing them could bring bad luck.
Adam Breen teaches newspaper and yearbook classes at San Benito High School and is a reporter for The Pinnacle. He is former editor of the Free Lance. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @AdamPBreen.
