Any Day Ellsbury #4: Very Superstitious
Inspired by Ted Walker’s “Every Day Ichiro” over at Pitchers & Poets, I’ll be chronicling the 2011 Red Sox season by paying close attention to outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury.
I have no idea if Jacoby Ellsbury has any kind of pregame rituals or superstitions. I haven’t even noticed if he has prepitch routine. (I did, however, notice that a few games ago, in his first AB, Ellsbury did the thing Ichiro does where he holds his right arm straight out, holding the bat vertically. I’ve never noticed him do that before, and I haven’t seen him do it since.) I’m not sure it matters for the purposes of this post, anyway; the fact that I’ve started every sentence so far with “I” should make it clear that this post is about more about me than Ellsbury. When it comes to baseball, I am very superstitious.
Two nights ago, Ellsbury’s 19-game hitting streak was snapped by an 0-4 night at the plate. Around 15 games, I started thinking, “If he keeps this going, I’m going to have to write about it.” At 18 games, I thought, “Well, I don’t want to jinx him.” Yes, I do, in fact, know how silly it is to think that a blog post discussing Ellsbury’s hitting streak could ruin it, just as I think it’s silly any time a fan thinks any of his or her actions can directly influence the outcome of a game. But for some reason my own weird baseball-related superstitions have never gone away.
Baseball, maybe more than any other sport, is full of these little eccentricities. Teammates don’t talk to a pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter. The words “perfect game” or “no-hitter” are off limits until the possibility of either has disappeared. Players avoid stepping on the foul lines while taking the field, except for those players who go out of their way to always step on the line. Then there are all the different prepitch routines. These are only examples of on the field routines. Back when my brother was still playing, if he hit a home run one day, he had to eat the same exact meals the next day (a fact I found very entertaining when he opened the 2001 season with homers in his first three games).
As for myself: back when I played, I believed in not washing my white sanitary socks (for those who don’t know, those are the socks that go under your stirrups) until I went hitless in a game. The same went for my long-sleeve undershirt. Needless to say, I had moments on my summer league teams where I probably smelled really disgusting. Anyway, those days are long gone (I’m OLD!), but apparently some kind of remnants have lingered long enough for me to think I could have ruined Ellsbury’s hit streak. Fortunately, I can write this knowing I had nothing to do with his streak’s end.
Ellsbury gets a chance to start a new streak tonight as the Red Sox visit Yankee Stadium.
