Baseball Superstitions Real? Unknown, But Nobody’s Testing Fate

Superstition is the belief that one event causes another without any physical process linking the two events.

To say that baseball is a sport with a long history of superstition would be like saying the Grand Canyon is simply a hole in the ground. Superstition is so ingrained into the game of baseball that some of its oldest forms are common-knowledge culture. Nobody talks to a pitcher if he is throwing a no-hitter. No one talks about hitting with a guy if he isn’t. If you’re hit by a pitch, you don’t rub it. And absolutely nobody steps on the chalk when going onto the field.

“I don’t know why you don’t step on the chalk, just that it’s bad luck,” said West Broward junior centerfielder Danny Pardo, who is well known on his team for being rather superstitious. “When you’re doing good, you never want to change it, so that’s sort of what I roll with.”

Many baseball players perform elaborate, repetitive routines during pre-game warm-ups or before pitches and at-bats because of superstition.

Pardo prefers to clean up his batters box, smoothing the dirt and wiping the plate prior to taking his at-bat. It is a ritual he randomly did to start a season when he was younger, and then he followed with a first-pitch, opposite-field hit that ultimately led to the ritual becoming imbedded in his routine.

“Kids tend to have a different mindset about it,” West Broward coach Sergio Ambros said. “They view it more as a habit, or more like doing drills.”

Ambros himself is guilty of being rather superstitious, having been born on Friday the 13^th and now choosing to wear the jersey number 31 — a reverse 13 to ward off bad luck.

Anything that happens before something good or bad in baseball can give birth to a new superstition.

For Ambros and Pardo, this past summer was a big success as they were part of the South Florida Elite Squad, which won the WWBA National Championship in East Cobb, Ga. Along the way, Ambros developed a superstition regarding his breakfast. After skipping breakfast the first day of the tournament, a day during which the team had lost, Ambros had a light breakfast of crackers and vitamin water. The team went out and won. The next morning, the same breakfast, the same result. Before they knew it, the team was in the final day, four games from the championship title.

Ambros even forgot his breakfast ritual, but circled back for it.

“I don’t know if it’s coincidence, but if I didn’t eat and we lost, I’ll never forget it,” Ambros said. “So even though I wasn’t hungry, I still ate the breakfast. Then I had a stomach ache.”

For some, the calm and peace it gives helps lead to success. But a routine may be nothing more than an act of preparation, rather then a supernatural act that propels a player to success.

“It’s easy to be superstitious in baseball because there are so many things that you do one way, that you can do a different way the next day,” said Calvary Christian senior centerfielder Ryan Reilly, who has a pre-game ritual in which he always tapes his wrist a certain way. “If I forget, then I just let myself be me and I zone it out. Once we’re on the field, we leave the superstitions behind.”

Some are so dominated by their rituals that they cannot deviate. Such is the case for Monarch senior infielder Kenny Finley, who has a distinct way in which he likes to tape up his bat before each game. He developed the specific fashion during districts last season before a game in which he went 3 for 4 with a home run. Now he’s the only one who prepares his bat.

“I tape it a certain way, nice and tight and thicker at the handle,” Finley said. “I know how I like it. If someone else tapes my bat. No! No one else tapes my bat!”

Such passion for these superstitions has long been manifested through movies and television shows, and perhaps the most memorable fictitious character would have to be Pedro Serrano from the film Major League. Serrano’s worship of his God “Jobu” manifested itself in his bat, which he spoke to throughout the film.

Some curses are legendary, such as the Curse of the Bambino, in which Babe Ruth cursed the Boston Red Sox for selling him to the New York Yankees and claimed they would never win another championship. The curse lasted for 86 years and spawned generations of believers.

Another famous MLB curse snares the Chicago Cubs and a famous goat. As the story goes, there was once a Chicagoan who liked to bring his goat to the baseball games at Wrigley Field, where he rooted for his beloved Cubbies. Times were different then and no one seemed to mind that the goat was there. Except then along came one game in which the President of the United States was to be in attendance, and in an effort to make the stadium as esteemed as the Cubs brass felt prudent, they requested that the man not bring his goat to the stadium for that game. The man was insulted and infuriated, and as legend goes, he cursed the team and claimed they would never win another championship for this insult.

“As a ballplayer, it’s almost impossible not to be superstitious,” Plantation coach Albert Destrade said. “You find yourself doings things that have no direct correlation, but if mentally it feels like it’s working, then it’s working.”

For Destrade, his one and only superstition is ingrained from when he was a child and it was taught to him from his grandfather, and that is to always put his right foot forward first. His grandfather believes one should always lead with your right foot. So as a coach, Destrade always makes sure to step out of the dugout with his right foot first.

“I’ve tripped up myself by not paying attention, and stutter-stepped a few times,” laughs Destrade. “Whatever makes you get off on the right foot though.”

Other common baseball superstitions include tapping the bat on the plate during an at-bat, always sitting in your favorite spot in the dugout and refusing to wash your clothes or batting helmet.

Perhaps the most common of all comes to a player’s hair, or facial hair.

“I was a relief pitcher in college, and I never cut my hair until I had a bad outing,” Monarch coach Joe Franco said. “My freshman year, I shaved it at the start of the season but had an afro by the end of the year. Then I gave up five earned quickly in 1.3 innings, and I went and shaved my head.”

How much does a superstition affect the outcome of a game? Some subscribe to the thinking that it puts a player at ease, lets them focus and makes them able to perform to the highest level. But others believe that these rituals help create balance on a higher level, creating a cosmic force that will propel an event forward. But by that note, break that balance and risk a curse.

The Chicago Cubs still have not won a championship since that day.

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