04/23/24
May 12, 2005
Yup, before I even checked I thought Boggs would be on there. I like the story of the guy who never turned right on the field because you always run bases to the left. Ron Luciano, the umpire, always had alot of superstitions too. He always wanted a quick game, so if a guy would hit a ground ball or fly out on the first pitch, he would make sure to hold his hands in the same position on subsequent pitches.
posted by vito90 at 12:28 PM on May 12, 2005
Mike Hargrove, "The Human Rain Delay", sounds an awful lot like Nomar at the plate. Too bad Nomar's had nothing but bad luck the last few years. Maybe all those adjustments at the plate aren't such a good thing.
posted by brewdudepa at 01:20 PM on May 12, 2005
10 Most Supersticious Baseball And Hockey Players is better fitting.Oh and one Tennis Player too.
posted by HOE.O.K. at 04:25 PM on May 12, 2005
I think baseball has got to be one of the most superstitious of sports. that said, i wouldn't consider it to be a top 10, just a list of 10 that the writer knows. if you look at the top 10 lists in the OSM they have a UK centric slant. write what you know. what I want to know is did Patrick Roy make sure not to step on the blue lines and red line when we was going toe to toe with Mike Vernon or Chris Osgoode? or did he wait back in his own end for the other goalie to come get him?
posted by gspm at 07:01 PM on May 12, 2005
10 Most Supersticious Baseball And Hockey Players is better fitting.Oh and one Tennis Player too. Yeah, kinda too bad, because there are amusing stories about superstition in all sports. I just got home from a high school track meet where there's a kid who insists on wearing the same two pairs of shorts, one over the other, to every meet. It's worked so far, I guess, because he's the defending state long jump champion; unfortunately, the shorts are falling apart...
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:28 PM on May 12, 2005
I've encountered (and suffered) a fair few in golf over the years. Raymond Burns was notoriously superstitious. Harrington tells a story of sharing a room with him once at an amatuer tournament. As they were going to bed, Burns put a dozen golf balls under his pillow - apparently, he was going to think about how he was going to play the course and transmit the information to his golf balls at the same time. In the middle of the night, he shook Harrington awake and told him that he'd "worked out how to shoot 65!" - which wouldn't be all that funny if he hadn't then gone out the next day and done exactly that, only to be enraged that he hadn't managed to do it "quite as he'd planned." On another occasion, he woke a room-mate up with much shifting about and complaining about how uncomfortable his bed was. The next morning, the room-mate went to the bathroom and round Raymond asleep in the bath. He won the tournament that week, and is reported to have slept in the bath for the rest of the reason. Another player who played for the national team but never turned pro was also very superstitious. At one tournament, I asked someone if they'd seen him and was told that he was in the bar, but to be careful as he was having a "saying everything twice day" - when I found him, this turned out to be exactly true. "How are you?" "Not bad. Not bad." "What did you shoot today?" "71. 71." "Do you want to go into the town later?" "Probably not. Probably not. Too tired. Too tired." Admittedly, both of those characters were closer to being OCD than just superstitious.
posted by JJ at 08:43 AM on May 13, 2005
Couldn't wait one more day to post this on Friday the 13th? ;)
posted by scully at 08:57 AM on May 13, 2005
I would think that in a sport like golf, OCD could be an asset.
posted by chicobangs at 09:30 AM on May 13, 2005
I would think that in a sport like golf, OCD could be an asset. Hey, they always replace their divots...
posted by chris2sy at 09:45 AM on May 13, 2005
Are they trying to say that a beer truck stopping by every day is not good luck, because I dispute that. I knew Boggs would be on there...that dirty chicken lover.