Reference no: EM133361311

"Baseball Magic" by George Gmelch 

• According to Gmelch, what is magic and how does it relate to religion?
• How does this change your perception about religion and magic?
• Are there any rituals you perform that you associate with good fortune? Explain.

On each pitching day for the first three months of a winning season, Dennis Grossini, a pitcher on a Detroit Tiger farm team, arose from bed at exactly 10:00 A.M. At 1:00 P.M. he went to the nearest restaurant for two glasses of iced tea and a tuna fish sandwich. When he got to the ballpark he put on the unwashed sweatshirt and jock he wore during his last winning game; one hour before the game he chewed a wad of Beech-Nut chewing tobacco. On the mound during the game, after each ball Grossini touched the letters on his uniform and straightened his cap. And after every inning in which he gave up a run, he washed his hands. When I asked which part of his ritual was most important, he said, "You can't really tell what's most important so it all becomes important. I'd be afraid to change anything. As long as I'm winning, I do everything the same." So do many ballplayers.

Trobriand Islanders, according to anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, felt the same way about their fishing magic.1 Trobrianders fished in two different settings: in the inner lagoon where fish were plentiful and there was little danger, and on the open sea where fishing was dangerous and yields varied widely. Malinowski found that magic was not used in lagoon fishing, where men could rely solely on their knowledge and skill. But when fishing on the open sea, Trobrianders used a great deal of magic to ensure safety and increase their catch.By magic, anthropologists refer to practices, notably the use of rituals, taboos, and fetishes (good luck charms), designed to gain control over the supernatural. Baseball, America's national pastime, is an arena in which players behave remarkably like Malinowski's Trobriand fishermen. There are three essential activities of the game-pitching, hitting, and fielding. In the first two, chance can play a surprisingly important role. The pitcher is the player least able to control the outcome of his efforts. He may feel great and have good stuff warming up in the bullpen and then get in the game and get clobbered. He may make a bad pitch and see the batter miss it for a strike or see it hit hard but right into the hands of a fielder for an out. Conversely, his best pitch may be blooped for a base hit. He may limit the opposing team to just a few hits yet lose the game, and he may give up many hits and win. And the good and bad luck doesn't always average out over the course of a season. For instance, last season (2013) Boston Red Sox John Lackey gave up fewer runs per game (ERA 3.52) than his teammate Jon Lester (ERA 3.75) but only won 43% of his games (10-13) while Lester won 65% of his games (15-8). Both pitchers had the same players on the field behind them. Regardless of how well a pitcher performs, the outcome of the game also depends upon the proficiency of his teammates in scoring runs, the ineptitude of the opposition, and luck. In the words of Red Sox pitcher Kyle Snyder, "there is only so much that is within your control and the rest is left up to the so-called baseball gods."Hitting, which most observers call the single most difficult task in the world of sports, is also full of uncertainty. Unless it's a home run, no matter how hard the batter hits the ball, fate determines whether it will go into a waiting glove or find a gap between the fielders. The uncertainty is compounded by the low success rate of hitting: the average hitter gets only one hit in every four trips to the plate, while the very top hitters average only one hit in every three trips. Fielding, to which we will return later, is the one part of baseball where chance does not play much of a role.

How does the uncertainty in pitching and hitting affect players? How do they try to control the outcomes of their performance? These are questions in which I first became interested many years ago both as a ballplayer and anthropology student. I had devoted much of my youth to baseball, and played professionally as a first baseman in the Detroit Tiger organization in the 1960s. It was shortly after the end of one baseball season that I took an anthropology course called "Magic, Religion, and Witchcraft." As I listened to my professor describe the magical rituals of the Trobriand Islanders, it occurred to me that what these so-called "primitive" people did wasn't all that different from what my teammates and I did for luck and confidence at the ballpark.Routines are comforting; they bring order into a world in which players have little control. The varied elements in following a routine also produce the tangible benefit of helping one concentrate. Ballplayers know that it is easy to "overthink" as opposed to just reacting, and that following a routine can keep them from thinking too much.

But some of what players do goes beyond mere routine. These actions are what anthropologists define as ritual-prescribed behaviors in which there is no connection between the behavior (e.g., tapping home plate three times) and the desired end (e.g., getting a base hit). Because there is no empirical relationship between the two, rituals are not rational. In fact, they can be quite irrational, as in kissing a medallion to get a base hit.

Baseball rituals are infinitely varied. Most are personal-performed by individuals rather than by a team or group. Most are done in a casual and unemotional manner with no more fanfare than when a player applies eye-black to his cheeks or pine tar to his bat. A player may deliberately put on the items of his uniform in a particular order. For outfielder Jim Austin it was his left sleeve first, then left pants leg, and left shoe before the right. After hitting two home runs in a game ex-Giant infielder Jim Davenport discovered that he had missed a buttonhole while dressing for the game. For the remainder of his career he left the same button undone. For outfielder Brian Hunter it is shoes: "I have a pair of high tops and a pair of low tops. Whichever shoes don't get a hit that game, I switch to the other pair." At the time of our interview, he was struggling at the plate and switching shoes almost every day.A ballplayer may ritualize any activity that he considers important or somehow linked to good performance. Recall the variety of things that Dennis Grossini does, from specific times for waking and eating to dress. Some players listen to the same songs on their iPods over and over before the start of every game. And that's 162 games a season. Astros infielder Julio Gotay played with a cheese sandwich in his back pocket. Hall-of-Famer Wade Boggs ate chicken before every game during his career, and that was just one of many elements in his pregame ritual; others included leaving his house for the ballpark at precisely the same time each day (1:47 P.M. for a night game), running wind sprints at 7:17 P.M., and drawing a chai-the Hebrew symbol for life-upon entering the batter's box, despite not being Jewish.

Many hitters have a preparatory ritual before stepping into the batter's box. These include tugging on their caps and batting gloves, touching their uniform letters, crossing themselves, and swinging the bat a prescribed number of times. Boston third baseman Mike Lowell always took four warm-up swings in the on-deck circle. Not five. Not three. He did it in a high school game one day and got four hits and never gave it up. Before each at bat Pablo Sandoval draws a cross behind the plate and thanks God for the opportunity to get another hit, then skips through the box and taps his spikes alternately three times for his grandmother, grandfather, and sister who died together in a car crash. Former Cleveland Indian first baseman Mike Hargrove had so many time-consuming elements in his batting ritual that he was nicknamed "the human rain delay." Like most players, Hargrove believed his batting rituals also helped him regain concentration, or as some players put it, "get locked in.But some wonder if players like Hargrove and Sandoval have become prisoners to their elaborate superstitions. Players who have too many or particularly bizarre rituals risk being labeled as "flakes," and not just by teammates but by fans and the media as well. Former Mets pitcher Turk Wendell's eccentric rituals included chewing black licorice while pitching, only to spit it out, brush his teeth and reload the candy between innings; he was also featured wearing a necklace of teeth from animals he had killed as the cover story of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

Baseball fans observe some of this ritual behavior, such as a player tagging a base when leaving and returning to the dugout between innings, or a pitcher smoothing the dirt on the mound after giving up a base hit, never realizing its importance to the player. The one ritual many fans do recognize, largely because it's a favorite of TV cameramen, is the "rally cap"-players in the dugout wearing their caps inside out and bill up in hopes of sparking a rally.

What are the origins of ballplayer rituals? Most grow out of exceptionally good performances. When a player does well, he seldom attributes his success to skill alone; after all, his skills don't vary much from day to day. So, then, what was different about last night that he can explain his three hits? He makes a correlation. That is, he attributes his good fortune, at least in part, to a food he ate, or not having shaved, or a new shirt he bought, or just about anything out of the ordinary. By repeating that behavior the next night, he hopes to bring more good luck. Outfielder John White explained how one of his rituals started:I was jogging out to centerfield after the national anthem when I picked up a scrap of paper. I got some good hits that night and I guess I decided that the paper had something to do with it. The next night I picked up a gum wrapper and had another good night at the plate ... I've been picking up paper every night since.

When outfielder Ron Wright played for the AAA Calgary Cannons, he shaved his arms once a week. It all began two years before when, after an injury, he shaved his arm so it could be taped, and then hit three homers. Similarly, Wade Boggs' routine of eating chicken before every game began when he was a rookie and noticed a correlation between multiple-hit games and poultry plates. By the end of his career his wife had 40 chicken recipes.

Like for Boggs, food often becomes part of a player's ritual, and we're not talking about nutritious foods that might actually enhance performance. Minor leaguer Mike Saccocio got three hits one night after eating at Long John Silver's. After that, he explained, "Whenever we pulled into town my first question would be, 'Do you have a Long John Silver?'" Pitcher Matt Garza goes to Popeye's Chicken on days he is scheduled to start. Justin Verlander eats at Taco Bell the night before he pitches, always ordering three crunchy taco supremes, a cheesy gordita crunch, and a Mexican pizza, no tomato. For Torii Hunter, who admits to having "a thousand superstitions but none of which last very long," it's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before every game, but only as long as he is getting hits. He switches to turkey or another sandwich after an "o-fer" (going hitless). To pitcher Derek Holland it's not what he eats but the amount of money that he spends on dinner the night before he pitches. It must be $30.Almost anything can become ritualized. Take former Yankee manager Joe Torre who during one game stood on the dugout steps instead of sitting on the bench when his team was batting. The Yankees scored a few runs, so he decided to keep on doing it. As the Yankees won nine games in a row, Torre kept standing. Torre explained, "As long as we score, I'll be doing the same thing." Similarly, pennant-winning teams seldom change the design of their uniforms or caps the next season, following the principle of "Never mess with success." Likewise, teams with losing records or poor attendance are far more likely to make changes in the design of their uniforms and hats.

When in a slump, many players will change their routines and rituals in an attempt to shake off their bad luck. Some players try sitting in a different place in the dugout, driving a different route to the ballpark, or putting their clothes on in a different order. Some shave their heads; others let their beards grow. Jason Giambi took to wearing a gold thong. Hector Martinez put his bat in the trash can for a few innings, as if to punish it, threatening to leave it there if it didn't start producing hits. I played for a manager who rattled the bat bin when the team was not hitting well, as if the bats were in a stupor and could be aroused by a good shaking. Diamondbacks left fielder Luis Gonzalez sometimes placed his bats in the room where Baseball Chapel-a Sunday church service-was about to get underway. Gonzales hoped his bats would get some benefit, though he didn't usually attend the service himself.Taboos are the opposite of rituals. These are things that you shouldn't do. The word comes from a Polynesian term meaning prohibition. For example, Malinowski observed that, before the Trobriand Islanders went fishing on the open sea, neither men nor women could adorn their bodies or comb their hair or apply coconut oil to their skin. Breaking a taboo, both Trobrianders and ballplayers believe, can lead to bad luck. Most players observe a few taboos. White Sox Adam Dunn, for example, would never stand in the on-deck circle and when pitcher Randy Choate of the Cardinals took the mound, he had to pick up the ball off the grass, not the dirt. If it was on the dirt (pitching mound) he would kick it to the grass, and then pick it up. Then he would throw seven warm-up pitches. No more, no less.

Many taboos concern behaviors off the field. On the day a pitcher is scheduled to start, he will avoid activities he believes may affect his luck. This can mean not shaving, avoiding certain foods or even not having sex. This notion about sex is probably based on an 18th-century belief about preserving vital body fluids, but experts now agree there is no ill effect and there may actually be a small benefit.

Taboos often grow out of exceptionally poor performances which players later attribute to a particular behavior. During my first season of pro ball I ate pancakes before a game in which I struck out three times. A few weeks later I had another terrible game, again after eating pancakes. The result was a pancake taboo: I never again ate pancakes during the season. But for former Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer, a stack of pancakes on the day he was to pitch was a requisite and the source of his nickname "Cakes."While most taboos are idiosyncratic, a few are universal to all ballplayers and are unrelated to personal misfortune. These taboos are learned as early as Little League and form part of the wider culture of baseball. Mentioning a no-hitter while one is in progress is a well-known example. To bring any pitching or hitting streak to the streaking player's attention may "jinx" him. Another universal taboo is not stepping on the white chalk foul lines. The origins of these shared beliefs are lost in time, though the taboo against stepping on the chalk lines may relate to the children's superstition, "step on a crack, and break your mother's back."