Paul Articulates – If it is working, don’t change it.

I am watching Mets games on the left side of the couch now, and probably for the rest of the season.  You see, the team had a horrible start to the season, which took them out of contention by the trade deadline.  Sure there were many reasons that affected their success, but nothing that would have indicated the complete collapse of the batting order, the bullpen, and for the most part the starting pitching.  I watched that disaster from the right side of my couch.  Since I switched to the left side, they are playing much better and the hitting is also much better.  I should have moved sooner.

I jokingly told that story to a friend of mine who is a Phillies fan.  Yes, Mets and Phillies fans can be friends.  This friend has a special Phillies glass but does not drink from it on game days anymore because they win more when he doesn’t.  This guy is the consummate engineer – everything has a logical reason and he can explain to you exactly how everything works.  Until the national anthem is over of course – then it is time for superstition.

You hear stories all the time of baseball superstitions – guys wearing the same socks during a winning streak or shaving their beard off to stop a hitting slump.  One of my favorites is the character Pedro Cerrano with the Voodoo shrine in his locker in the film Major League.  You can find all sorts of bizarre baseball superstitions by Googling it – you will be entertained for quite a while.

If you are reading this post, you probably have a superstition of your own.  It is a timeless ritual in the sporting world that has existed since the Greeks ran naked in the ancient Olympics. Hermes has not lost a race since he got rid of that unlucky toga.  So what is your superstition and have you ever broken it?  Did you live in guilt if it caused an undesirable outcome?

Superstition actually has a rightful place in sports, and particularly in baseball.  Games are sometimes won on talent, but are sometimes won or lost on luck.  The difference in a game can be a ball that spins away from a fielder’s glove, a bad hop on the infield dirt, or a ball that bounces off a fence right into a fielder’s hands with time to throw out a runner.  When things seem beyond your control, you sometimes look for a supernatural reason to explain the unexplainable.  

As fans, we have absolutely no control over what happens in a game other than pumping up players’ adrenaline with loud cheers.  So we resort to the questionable belief that we can impact an outcome with our superstitious behavior.

I’m sticking to the left side of my couch for the rest of the season – what about you?