Exploring the positives and negatives of athletic rituals
By: Joe Ray
– Assistant Online Editor –
Sports superstitions have been a big part of our favorite sports for many years. It is more commonly known in baseball and hockey. The most popular superstitions come out of baseball.
According to sports psychologist Richard Lustberg, Ph.D., “Athletes begin to believe and want to believe, that their particular routine is enhancing their performance.”
Superstition is defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary as a belief or practice resulting from fear of the unknown or a false conception of causation. This means that most athletes have beliefs or superstitions based on past experience that was never tested but believe it works because it hasn’t failed them before.
STLCC-Meramec baseball player Seth Gorman is a left-handed pitcher which is a superstition in itself according to coach Tony Dattoli. Gorman also mentioned that when the team is struggling in a game, they would move to a different part of the bench in the dugout. Sometimes, this would result in a better outcome with the team’s offense, and the team would stick to that section of the bench.
“I would put on my left sock first before my right sock, and put my clothes on in a certain order. When you have people around you that have superstitions, you tend to pick it up also,” Gormen said on his experience with superstitions.
Hockey is also a superstitious sport.
“Off the top of my head, forward Tyler Chapmen puts his pants on after all his other equipment is on,” Meramec coach Ben Lambert said. “A lot of the guys tape their sticks the exact same way every time. Forward Justin Dye always stands on the bench in between periods when we huddle together as a team.”
Baseball has been a superstitious sport for a long time. Even to this day the biggest superstition of all is the Cubs curse. The curse is officially called the Billy Goat curse. It began in 1945 when the Billy Goat tavern owner Billy Sianis wanted inside Wrigley Field with his goat. He was denied access inside the stadium and supposedly put a curse on the team to never win again.
The Chicago Cubs curse is looked at as magic or a curse. To this day, the Cubs have not won a World Series. It has been more than 100 years. This is huge proof that superstitions are present in sports.
There have been many explanations behind the Cubs curse. In the last couple of years there have been many attempts to cure the curse or make it go away. They have even brought in a priest to try and bless the dugout, to give the Cubs a chance to win the World Series that year. That never happened. Instead, the Cubs were swept during the series and had to wait another year to break that curse.
Some myths can be disproven. On July 23, 2009 Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle had a perfect game going through seven innings. (The current superstition of perfect games is not to talk to the pitcher who is throwing the perfect game.) A perfect game in baseball terms means the pitcher has not given up any hits or walks and his team has not caused in errors in the field behind him.
During this game, Buehrle was talking to his teammates in the dugout. He sat in the dugout, laughing and joking with his teammates and really didn’t care about the superstition. The result of the game was a perfect game.
However, Cleveland Indians pitcher Cliff Lee may just support the superstition. He was throwing a no-hitter through seven innings also. There was a message on the jumbotron noting that the last no-hitter in Cleveland history. St. Louis Cardinals, Yadier Molina hit a double in the eighth and the no-hitter was given up.
Superstitions are all mind controlled and based on the individual. The big following of superstitions in sports has caused it to become very popular. Even though some may not agree with the rituals, superstitions may just be a good thing because they can cause athletes to strive for better.
