Baseball Superstitions and Rituals
Why baseball breeds superstition, a tour of well-documented player rituals, dugout taboos and famous curses, and what the numbers say about luck, failure and the habits that help players cope.
Baseball is famous for its superstitions, and there is a reason the sport grew them: its central act is a failure rate that would end most careers anywhere else. The best hitters in the historical record fail about two-thirds of the time. Babe Ruth hit .342 for his career, which means he did not get a hit in roughly 66 of every 100 at-bats. Wade Boggs, who hit .328, failed about 67 times in 100. Tony Gwynn, at .338, failed about 66. Put a person in a job where the best in history succeed one time in three, where the outcome depends partly on a bounce, a gust of wind or a fielder's step, and ritual starts to look like a way of coping.
This article separates three things that people lump together. A superstition is a belief that some action will bring good or bad luck. A ritual is a repeated routine, which may or may not rest on a superstition. A tradition is a shared custom, such as a ballpark song, that belongs to a crowd rather than a player. It then surveys the best-documented examples, the famous curses, the thinking behind why they persist, and the small but real ways routines help. It also says where the evidence stops: the historical record shows what happened on the field, and the stories below come from reporting and memoirs, so they carry the hedge "reportedly" even when they are well known.
Why baseball, of all sports
The best-known explanation comes from an anthropologist and an essay about baseball. In the early twentieth century the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski studied fishermen in the Trobriand Islands and noticed that they used elaborate magic when fishing in the open sea, which was dangerous and unpredictable, and none when fishing in the calm lagoon, where the catch was reliable. In 1971 another anthropologist, George Gmelch, a former minor-league player, applied the same logic to baseball in an essay called "Baseball Magic." He argued that players kept rituals around the parts of the game where chance dominates, hitting and pitching, and kept few around fielding, where a player handles most chances successfully.
The logic holds up when you look at what a game asks of a player. A fielder gets the ball and makes a play most of the time. A hitter faces a pitcher who is trying to beat him, throwing at speeds that leave a fraction of a second to decide, and he succeeds a third of the time at his best. A pitcher can make a perfect pitch and watch it fall for a hit. The earlier psychologist B. F. Skinner reported in 1948 that pigeons given food at random intervals developed repeated behaviors, as if they believed the behaviors caused the food. Baseball players are people and not pigeons, but the core idea is the same: if you do something just before a good result, you are inclined to do it again.
| Hitter | Career average | Hits in at-bats | Share of at-bats without a hit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Babe Ruth | .342 | 2,873 of 8,398 | about 66 percent |
| Wade Boggs | .328 | 3,010 of 9,180 | about 67 percent |
| Tony Gwynn | .338 | 3,141 of 9,288 | about 66 percent |
The table counts at-bats, so it leaves out walks, which are another way to reach base. Even so, it makes the point: the very best are wrong, in the sense of not getting a hit, most of the time.
The players and their routines
Baseball's best-known rituals belong to individuals, and a few have been told and retold for so long that they are part of the sport's folklore. These are reported accounts rather than anything the database can confirm.
Wade Boggs, who finished with 3,010 hits and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2005, was famous for a pregame routine that reportedly included eating chicken before games and taking a set number of ground balls in practice. Turk Wendell, a reliever with 33 career saves, is remembered for brushing his teeth between innings and for jumping over the foul line rather than stepping on it. Nomar Garciaparra was known for adjusting his batting gloves between pitches, repeatedly and in a set sequence. Mike Hargrove earned the nickname "the human rain delay" for the time he spent adjusting his equipment before each pitch as a hitter, and he later managed Cleveland to the 1995 and 1997 pennants.
What these routines have in common is that they are specific, repeated and almost always attached to a feeling of control. The routine does nothing to the ball. It does something for the player, and the next section explains what.
Dugout and clubhouse taboos
Beyond individuals, baseball has taboos that belong to the whole team. They are widely reported, and some are almost universal.
- Silence about a no-hitter. When a pitcher is working on a no-hitter, teammates traditionally avoid mentioning it, and some move away from the pitcher in the dugout. Broadcasters, too, are said to avoid the word. For more on the booth's traditions, see baseball announcers and the radio voice.
- The foul line. Many players step over the chalk line rather than on it when they enter or leave the field. Some pitchers do this on every trip to the mound.
- Crossed bats. Some players avoid leaving bats crossed on the ground, a belief that it saps hits from them.
- Uniform numbers. The number 13 is avoided by some, though not by everyone: Omar Vizquel and Alex Rodriguez wore it, and so did Dave Concepcion.
- Streaks and routines. After a win, players reportedly keep the same socks, the same route to the park or the same meal, and sometimes decline to wash a shirt during a hot streak.
- Playoff beards. The practice of growing a beard during a postseason run is better known in hockey, but baseball clubs have adopted it. The 2013 Red Sox were widely known for their beards, and they won the World Series that fall.
- The rally cap. Fans and players fold a cap or wear it inside out to will a comeback, a ritual that is half joke and half belief. It is a tradition and a superstition at once.
Some of these taboos are really about etiquette or protecting a teammate's focus, and the line is hard to draw. Talking about a no-hitter does not change a pitcher's odds, but a pitcher with a fragile concentration might be glad of the quiet. In that sense the taboo works socially even if it fails physically.
Curses: the superstitions of whole cities
The largest superstitions belong to fans. A curse is a story that explains a long failure by blaming something in the past. Baseball has several, and the numbers behind each show how the stories grew.
The Curse of the Bambino blamed Boston's long title drought on the club's sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season. The historical franchise record shows that the Red Sox won the World Series in 1918 and did not win another until 2004, a gap of 86 seasons, after which they won again in 2007, 2013 and 2018. The sale of Ruth was real and so was the drought, but the curse is a story laid over a long run of seasons in which many things happened.
The Curse of the Billy Goat comes from the 1945 World Series, when a tavern owner and his goat were reportedly turned away at Wrigley Field. The Cubs lost that Series to the Detroit Tigers, four games to three, and did not return until 2016, when they beat Cleveland four games to three after trailing three games to one. The Cubs' previous championship was 1908, a drought of 108 years. In 1969 a black cat wandered onto the field at Shea Stadium during a September game against the Mets, and the Cubs, who finished 92-70, lost the division to a Mets team that won 100.
Cleveland's drought, which began after the 1948 title, and the Padres' record of no championship in 57 seasons run on the same logic. A reasonable view is that curses are a way of telling a story about luck. With 30 clubs and one champion a year, a typical club wins about once in 30 seasons, so long waits are normal and not supernatural. A curse gives a drought a villain.
Ballpark traditions and the fan's side
Fans have their own rituals, and the line between belief and fun is thin. Many sit in the same seat, wear the same jersey on game days, or refuse to leave until the last out. Some turn the habit into a spectacle, like the Angels' Rally Monkey, a video-board gag that became famous during the club's 2002 championship run, in which the Angels beat the Giants four games to three. Fan traditions like singing during the seventh-inning stretch belong to the category of custom rather than belief, and Take Me Out to the Ball Game and the traditions of the ballpark covers those.
Even the language reflects it. Words like "jinx," "hex" and "rally" are part of baseball's vocabulary, and a glossary of baseball slang explains many of them. The sport's museum preserves bats, gloves and balls from across its history; see the Hall of Fame museum and Cooperstown for a visitor's guide. And the cost of a favorite seat is a practical matter that baseball ticket pricing addresses.
Do rituals work?
The honest answer is that they work on the player and not on the ball. Researchers who study sport psychology have found that pre-performance routines can reduce anxiety and sharpen focus, and some experiments suggest that a belief in a lucky object can improve a person's confidence and performance on a task. The reason is thought to be psychological: a ritual gives the player a way to focus attention and a feeling of control. That is why a routine such as stepping out of the batter's box, taking a breath and resetting is useful, while a belief that a certain pair of socks controls a pitcher is merely a comfort.
The distinction matters because the useful kind and the harmful kind can look alike. A routine is helpful when it is short, flexible and focused on the task. A superstition becomes a problem when it is rigid, when a player cannot function if the ritual is interrupted, or when it takes up so much time that it affects the team. The pitch clock introduced in 2023 set time limits on the gaps between pitches, and players with long routines had to compress them.
It is also worth saying that none of this means skill does not matter. The ritual lives on the margin, in the mind, and it is a reasonable way to cope with a sport in which failure is the norm.
A routine worth keeping, and one worth dropping
If you coach a young player or simply want to understand why veterans are so particular, it helps to sort habits into two groups. The first group is the pre-pitch routine: a short, repeatable sequence of actions that gets a hitter or pitcher ready. A hitter steps out, takes a breath, taps the plate or adjusts a glove, steps back in and looks for the pitch. A pitcher takes the ball, looks at the catcher's sign and goes through the same few movements before each delivery. These routines tie the player to the task at hand, and they are the habits sports psychologists generally encourage, because the content matters less than the consistency.
The second group is the magical belief: that a particular meal, a certain pair of socks or a path to the ballpark changes the result. The test of whether a habit belongs in the first group or the second is simple. Ask whether it would still make sense if the player knew for certain that it had no effect on luck. A breath and a reset passes the test, because it helps focus. A rule that the player cannot step on a line passes only if he is happy to lose a little attention to it. A habit that causes distress when it is broken has become a burden.
Superstition in an age of data
Modern front offices run on analysis, and it is fair to ask where superstition fits. The answer is that it has moved but not disappeared. Teams track far more than they once did, and a pitcher's workload and a hitter's batted-ball quality are reviewed with tools their predecessors never had. Yet the players still walk onto the field carrying the same human worries, and the clubhouse still has its sacred habits. The sport has learned to treat them lightly: clubs generally leave harmless rituals alone and step in only when a habit interferes with preparation or teammates.
That tolerance makes sense. A player who feels in control tends to perform with less tension, and a clubhouse that jokes about a teammate's socks is a clubhouse where people talk to each other. The risk is in the opposite direction, when a ritual or a curse story becomes an excuse. A club that blames a goat or a black cat for a long drought is not asking what it can do about its scouting, its payroll or its bullpen.
Common questions
Why do pitchers avoid stepping on the foul line? It is a long-standing superstition. No evidence suggests that it has any effect on performance.
Is it really bad luck to mention a no-hitter? Many players and broadcasters believe so, but there is no evidence that talking about it changes the outcome. The practice is partly about protecting the pitcher's concentration.
What was the Curse of the Bambino? The explanation fans gave for the Red Sox's lack of a title between 1918 and 2004, blamed on the sale of Babe Ruth after 1919.
Do superstitions help? Routines can help by reducing anxiety and focusing attention. A rigid belief that something external controls the outcome is more likely to cause stress than to help.
Are baseball players more superstitious than other athletes? Many commentators say so, and the explanation based on uncertainty is persuasive, but there is no definitive count.
Where to go next
If you want to see how the sport's traditions fit together, start with the ballpark traditions article and the history and Hall of Fame topic page. For the numbers behind the failure rates, the site's leaders pages let you look up any hitter's record. If your interest runs to wagering on luck, remember that moneyline, run line and totals are markets with odds and no lucky socks; gambling carries risk, is for adults of legal age where it is legal, and help is available at 1-800-GAMBLER.