Video: Baseball superstitions are going too far now
First things first: I completely understand that sports are superstitious by nature and, of all the sports out there, baseball might be the most superstitious. Baseball players, just by nature of being together everyday from February to October, go through periods where they find weird good-luck charms, adopt random animals that are rally-bringers and decide that the most random things are making them lose.
I don’t have a problem with any of the good-natured stuff that gets baseball players through spring training and the dog days of summer. But I also think it’s fair game to say that some of this stuff is straight-up absurd.
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The latest example? It came this week from the Toronto Blue Jays, who decided to stop wearing their new all-red uniforms that celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday because they’re “bad luck.” The Jays were supposed to wear them for all Sunday home games this season, plus for Canada Day. Before last Sunday’s game, they were 3-5 in those uniforms — three of those losses were routs though: 7-1, 15-1 and 19-1.
Jays infielder Ryan Goins said, via Daily Hive Toronto:
“We should probably just shred ’em, burn ’em, give ’em away to charity, something. But they need to go. Save your red, just start wearing blue every day.”
At least he didn’t go all Chris Sale on the uniforms and cut them up, right?
The bigger issue that strikes me here is this: With so many different uniforms in MLB these days, can you really blame the uniforms? (I know, people will *always* blame something.) Don’t you think that at some point maybe it has more to do with, ummm — I dunno, I’m just spitballing here — but maybe, the players?
This year, teams are wearing more uniforms than ever before. There are uniforms for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Players Weekend, plus each team’s alternates. For the Blue Jays, that’s seven different looks. How do you even keep track of which uniforms are good luck or bad luck?
What happens when one clubhouse decides Sundays are bad luck? Or when a team decides the third inning is bad luck? Or left-handed hitters? Luckily, baseball isn’t that wacky. Yet.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
