Superstition

Two taps, one on each opposite corner of the plate. 

Two half swings of the bat towards the pitcher. 

Dig in the back foot. 

Baseball’s superstitions are as much part of the game as an umpire getting haggled for a bad call. Every player has their own, usually born out of a game winning hit or a streak of luck you don’t want to break.  

And my approach at the plate followed the same sequence. 

Once I was in the batter’s box, I stayed there, only pivoting my front foot out to reset after talking a ball, or a strike. 

Then, I’d let the bat swing like a pendulum twice, and get back in. 

If I fouled a ball off, I’d take a short lap to reset. I guess I thought I earned it if I had made some contact. But, as soon as I stepped into the box, I returned to my routine. 

Two taps, once on each opposite corner of the plate. 

Two half swings of the bat towards the pitcher. Dig in my back foot. 

I had to do it. If I didn’t, something felt off. Even now, I can feel it. Like an itch you just can’t scratch. 

If I didn’t go through the routine, everything was off. It was like I had no shot of hitting the pitch. I probably wouldn’t do well in this pitch clock era, if the clock trickled down to small town summer leagues since that’s as far as my career made it. 

The superstition didn’t stop (or start) at the plate. 

In the on deck circle, I always hit each spike with my bat. It knocked some dirt loose but I mostly liked the sound. 

If you and I went outside to throw right now, I’d pick up a glove and on every throw I’d pat the glove twice before releasing the ball. 

As a kid, this habit was formed on the field, much to my coach’s (and dad’s) dismay. I was holding down the hot corner for the first few years of ball and the distance from third to first isn’t insignificant, even on a little league field. 

“You’ve gotta quit patting your glove,” my dad would say when I came back to the dugout. “It’s taking too long to get the throw off.” 

But how do you stop doing something when it feels like it’s as much a part of the process as putting on the glove? Or making the throw? 

It’s like the ball simply could not make it to first, or wherever it was going, unless it touched my glove twice. Somewhere along the way, someone, or something, broke me out of it and I stopped doing it during games. 

It still creeps in. 

It did during intramural softball in college when I was slinging the ball from shortstop. The basrunners and distance were a little more forgiving. And my dad and coach weren’t around to tell me to stop doing it. 

If I was playing the field, I always had a batting glove in my back right pocket. I throw right-handed (but bat left) so I kept my left batting glove on while I played the field. I never touch a baseline, whether it’s freshly chalked or barely visible during the late stages of a game. I did that once and caught all kinds of grief. 

In the span of seven, nine, or more innings, all of these rituals  happened dozens of times. 

It’s like they were in sync. 

Each is a different process to a complicated game. 

And each had to happen or else the whole machinery, or at least my role in it, would fall to pieces.

The game’s changed a lot. If you turn on the TV and see how the Braves are doing, you’ll see plays challenged and a pitcher doesn’t even have to throw a pitch to intentionally walk a guy.  But you’ll still see batting routines so ingrained in a player, it’s part of his identity. Guys skip over the first or third base line on the way to their position or the dugout. 

A cross sign is made after a homerun or base hit. Caps are turned inside out for a late inning rally. Beards are unshaven during win streaks. Or they’re not allowed to grow facial hair at all (the Yanks).   

It all seems silly from an the outside. And maybe it even does to the guys doing it. But if it’s working, you don’t dare stop it. 

I haven’t been on the field in a long time. I don’t get out and throw the ball or step into the box much anymore. I have a few times in softball leagues. And even if the person pitching behind an L screen is 72 years old and gripes about every call, the old superstitious kick back in. That underhanded pitch may be lobbed in at 20 MPH hour, but I’m a goner unless I can get each step in. 

Two taps, one on each opposite corner of the plate. 

Two half swings of the bat towards the pitcher. Dig in the back foot.