PERSPECTIVE ON OPENING DAY : The Dodgers Owe Big to a Lucky Cap : The Faith and Rituals of Fandom Determine Baseball as Much as the Skill of the Team. It’s Been Proved.

With opening day, the true beginning of spring, I dust off my lucky cap. It’s an authentic Brooklyn Dodger model, size 7 1/4, deep-blue wool with a fancy white B on the front--not one of those one-size-fits-all counterfeits with a plastic strap in the back. Ersatz caps are powerless. Mine works miracles. When I wear it, the Dodgers win. Well, usually win. It is not 100% effective, but its batting average easily surpasses that of prayer.

I first discovered the power of the cap during the 1988 season. I wore it for practically every inning of the stretch drive. I wore it for every playoff game as the underdog Dodgers whipped the powerful Mets. I wore it the night of Kirk Gibson’s famous home run and for every subsequent World Series game.

The Dodgers fared less well in 1989 and 1990, of course, and last year they came up a heartbeat short of the Braves. This was neither because my cap had lost its strength nor because I was dilatory in my ritual. Rather, my efforts and those of my compatriots were simply outmatched, not least by the San Francisco fans who were granted a pennant as compensation for the earthquake.

You might scoff at the suggestion that the rites of individuals have anything to do with what transpires on the diamond. But the faithful know that there is more to heaven and earth--and balls and strikes--than is dreamt of in your philosophy.

Everyone knows that baseball affects what goes on in the world. Just ask anyone who lived in New York after the Amazing Mets won the 1969 Series. Ask John V. Lindsay, the mayor at the time, who won reelection only because the ecstatic vibes from October’s victory permeated the decaying city well into November. For contrast, ask survivors what life was like in Chicago that same autumn.

But only the true fan comprehends the equal, opposite reaction. My cap matters. So do the rituals of countless other loyalists. Is this rational? Of course not. You want logic, look in the broadcasting booth or in the dugout, where managers punch up data on computers before deciding on a pinch hitter. The true fan is a mystic. He works miracles in silence as he combats the dark forces aligned against his team.

If you scratch the surface of a fan you will find a devotee. An attorney I know, when he goes to Dodger Stadium, must park his car so that the sign for Section 13 can be seen in his rearview mirror. Attend a game in St. Louis and you might see a man with a gray beard reach between the buttons of his Oxford shirt. He’s fondling the string of sandalwood beads that helped win the 1967 World Series for the Cardinals, just after the beads were bought on Haight Street during the Summer of Love.

For the fan, it is just as important to know what jinxes as it is to know what blesses. I know fanatics who would risk kidney disease rather than go to the bathroom after the seventh inning. One Boston partisan hasn’t been to his beloved Fenway Park since the Red Sox blew the 1975 World Series. He knows it was his fault. He is admittedly an extreme case, but he is a psychiatrist.

If we fanatics sit in lucky chairs, eat ritual meals at inconvenient times, wear unattractive but propitious garments or fondle fetishes, don’t try to persuade us that our behavior is foolish or irrational. Talking sense is a waste of time. We’ve been through it already, suffering long, dark nights of the soul as reason clashed with instinct.

We are sorry if we embarrass you, but we can’t help ourselves.