Superstition <i> Is</i> Their Way : Rituals Have a Place--If the Team Wins

You’re a high school shortstop and your team just lost, 5-0. Your seven-game winning streak is history. So is your 11-game hitting streak. You went 0 for 4, struck out twice and made an error to boot.

You could rationalize by saying you ran into a pitcher who threw a 91-m.p.h. fastball, a nasty curve and a vicious slider. And that grounder in the fifth inning took a bad hop.

But you know the real reasons for the disaster.

It’s because you didn’t twirl a banana in your breakfast cereal, the way you have every game day since your streak started.

Or because your mother accidentally washed the wretched, petrified pair of lucky socks you had been wearing every game, the ones she said were about to stand up and walk away.

Or because you didn’t sit in the same gum in the same seat on the same bus on the way to the park.

So, naturally, you messed up your first at-bat.

You tapped the plate with your bat twice, knocked your cleats with your bat once and patted the top of your helmet once. You were supposed to pat the helmet before you knocked the cleats. You just weren’t thinking.

And you accidentally stepped on the foul line on your way out to the field for the fifth inning. You were tossing a glove to your teammate. You didn’t even see the line. But you touched it.

And you made the error.

You just knew it would be like this. Bad karma.

Welcome to the world of baseball superstition--filled with ghouls and goblins and black cats and cracked bats; where every object can have a hidden meaning, but where science and logic have no meaning at all.

Some players and coaches laugh at the mere suggestion that they might be superstitious. Others are obsessed by superstition.

Wade Boggs of the Boston Red Sox eats chicken every day. Legendary manager Casey Stengel never stepped on a foul line on his way to the mound. That’s considered a major taboo.

And who can forget former Texas Ranger Mike Hargrove, who went through an exhausting ritual that included 19 steps--among them, adjusting his batting gloves, belt, uniform top and helmet--before every pitch?

It irritated opposing pitchers, but it appeased the baseball gods.

That’s what superstition is all about--warding off the demons that cause bad luck and maintaining the rituals that bring success.

When things are going good, you don’t want to do anything that will change your routine. You won’t shave until you lose. You won’t wash your uniform. You’ll eat the same food and wear the same clothes to school.

But when things are going bad, you’ll try anything to break out of it. You’ll use a new routine at the plate, find a new good-luck charm. You might even (gasp!) step on a foul line.

Say you don’t believe in superstition? Say it’s a bunch of hogwash?

Too bad, you can’t escape it. There is even superstition in avoiding superstition.

“The ultimate superstition is to never admit that you have them,” said Jack Hodges, Laguna Hills High School coach.

There are the usual baseball superstitions: Never talk to a pitcher who is throwing a no-hitter, for example.

And there are wacky ones.

Come take a magical mystical tour down Orange County’s superstition highway:

THE SACRIFICIAL BATTING GLOVE

Tony Inga’s two game-day rituals are to eat Raisin Bran and tell a dirty joke when the infielders huddle around the mound before the first pitch of every game. But sometimes, those just aren’t enough for the Villa Park third baseman.

When Inga isn’t happy with the way he’s hitting, he finds two small sticks or pieces of wood, tapes them together to form a cross, and plants the cross in the ground behind the Spartans’ dugout.

He then takes off his batting glove--which must be infested with evil spirits, because it’s not producing enough hits--hangs it on the cross, and sets the glove on fire.

After the glove has been burned beyond recognition, Inga concludes the ceremony by digging a hole and burying the remains. So far this season, at least three batting gloves have been sacrificed.

“People think we’re a bunch of pyromaniacs, or something,” Inga said.

Wonder why.

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME

A day before Esperanza was to play top-ranked Simi Valley in last year’s Southern Section 4-A semifinals, Aztec Coach Mike Curran and assistant Doug Domene were walking to the practice field when Domene spotted a nickel on the ground and informed Curran of his finding.

“Big deal, a nickel,” Curran said.

To which Domene replied, “Pick it up. That’s five runs.”

Curran wasn’t big on omens, but figured he’d pick up the nickel to appease his assistant.

After practice, Curran spotted a penny on the ground and jokingly asked Domene if it would be good for another run. “Sure,” Domene said.

Curran laughed, rolled his eyes as if to say, “Yeah, right,” and scooped up the penny.

The next day, Esperanza beat Simi Valley, 6-5, to earn a berth in the 4-A championship game against Fontana. That made a believer out of Curran.

“The rest of the week before the Fontana game, I was walking around looking for money,” he said.

That Friday, the day before the game, Curran was talking to Dave Stout, Esperanza’s tennis coach, when Stout noticed a dime on the ground.

Curran snatched it up and said, “All right, we’re going to get 10 runs tomorrow.”

Almost. Esperanza fell one short of Curran’s prediction, but still had an easy time defeating Fontana, 9-3, for the 4-A title.

“We only got nine, so I figured it was a bad dime or something,” Curran said.

Maybe so, but it was a good omen.

NOT IN THE CARDS

Josh Musselman, a junior outfielder at Los Alamitos, keeps a baseball card of his favorite player, former Texas Ranger and Cleveland Indian Toby Harrah, inside the crown of his cap for good luck.

During a summer league game last year, Griffin Coach Mike Gibson called on Musselman to replace his starting pitcher. Musselman had come prepared. Before taking the mound, he checked into the dugout and replaced the Harrah card with one of Dodger ace Fernando Valenzuela.

Musselman then struck out the only batter he faced that inning and returned to the dugout thinking that he, along with Gibson, had made the right move.

He wasn’t so lucky the next inning.

“All of a sudden he started getting shelled,” Gibson said. “After he had given up a bunch of hits and runs, he took the baseball card out of his hat and ripped it to pieces right there on the mound. That was the end of that guy.”

And the end of Musselman’s pitching career too. He’s strictly an outfielder and designated hitter for the Griffins this season.

SUPERSTITIOUS HEAD TO TOE

Ken Millard, Estancia coach, accidentally left home April 3 without his red game cleats and his nice game cap.

So for that afternoon’s game against Saddleback, he had to wear an old, beat-up, greasy hat that had been decaying in the trunk of his car for years and a pair of blue cleats that clashed with the Eagles’ scarlet, gold and white uniforms.

Estancia left-hander Pat Norville pitched a perfect game that day to give the Eagles a 1-0 victory. Millard figured the worn-out hat and shoes had something to do with it.

He continued to wear them, and Estancia defeated three straight Sea View League opponents to improve to 5-3.

“We haven’t lost, so I haven’t changed them since,” Millard said last Thursday night. “Of course, by telling you this, I’ll probably get hammered tomorrow.”

Sure enough, the Eagles lost to last-place Newport Harbor, 4-1, Friday.

Millard said Saturday that he’ll go back to wearing his good hat and red game shoes.

UNIFORM CHOICE

When La Quinta’s fund-raising efforts for new uniforms fell a bit short last year, the Aztecs decided to use what money they had to purchase new practice T-shirts, to be worn during pregame infield and outfield practice and replaced by uniform tops for the game.

But with the Aztecs struggling to a 2-5 start in the Garden Grove League last year and the weather a bit on the warm side, the players decided to wear the T-shirt tops, which had their names and numbers on the back, for a game against first-place Garden Grove.

La Quinta won, 3-0. It had to have been the uniforms, the Aztecs figured. They continued to wear the T-shirts and won their last eight league games to finish 10-5 and in second place.

“We never wore our uniform tops again,” La Quinta Coach Dave Demarest said. “We bought them (the T-shirts) again this year. Why pay $30 or $40 for a new uniform top when you can wear a T-shirt?”

And why mess with a good thing? The Aztecs are 9-0 in league, 17-2 overall using the T-shirts this season.

WALK’S AS GOOD AS A HIT

When Hodges of Laguna Hills was playing high school ball in Hawaii, he walked to every game.

Because his family had only one car, Hodges began walking the five miles from home to the park for summer-league games and found it to be relaxing. When he started getting two and three hits a game, he made a point of walking.

Of course, this created a few problems on high school road trips. Just before the bus would pull into a park or school, Hodges would make an excuse to get off the bus, so he could walk to the game.

“I’d tell the bus driver that I had forgot something at home and needed to use the phone, or that I had to go to the bathroom,” Hodges said.

He did this for two years, until his teammates finally discovered his superstition during his senior season. Because everyone knew, Hodges decided it would be best to break the ritual.

“And I didn’t have as good a senior year as I did sophomore and junior year,” Hodges said. “You obviously have to attribute that bad luck to the guys figuring it out.”

Obviously.

ODDS AND ENDS (MOSTLY ODDS)

Dave Shetland, who wore No. 6 as Laguna Hills’ shortstop last season, would never stand next to the player who wore No. 7, because six and seven added up to 13, an unlucky number for most.

Jay Christensen, Laguna Hills shortstop this season, has a lucky necklace, but because high school players aren’t allowed to wear jewelry during games, he tapes it to the dugout wall next to the lineup card.

Kevin Bates, Villa Park catcher, wore yellow high-top sneakers to his school prom in March and now wears them to every baseball game. “I guess he had a good time at the prom and figured it would carry over onto the field,” said Dave Ochoa, Spartan coach.

For most of last season, Western Coach Dave Bowman ate at McDonald’s on game days, ordering a quarter-pound hamburger, apple pie and a medium drink. The Pioneers won 17 of 18 games on days Bowman went to McDonald’s, with their only loss to Rio Mesa in the 3-A championship game. “Maybe I should have ordered two Quarter pounders that day,” he said.

Demarest, the La Quinta coach, said his only superstition is wearing No. 21, which he wore during his playing days at Cal State Long Beach. When he arrived at La Quinta 14 years ago, there were only uniforms numbered 1 through 18. “So I ordered 21 new uniforms, even though we had only 15 guys on the team.”

Myron Pines, Santiago coach, has worn the same pair of game shoes for the past 14 years. They began as metal spikes but are so worn, there are no signs of metal left on the soles. “I wouldn’t say they’re lucky, at least not this year,” Pines said. The Cavaliers are 7-10.