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A friend of mine had a weird thing he used to do while we watched Tigers games, something he picked up while watching a live game at Comerica one day. He and a buddy, likely well in their cups at this point, shouted “INGE SUCKS!” when poor Brandon Inge came up to the plate for his at-bat. Well, Inge hit a home run. So for the remainder of Inge’s tenure with the Tigers, this friend of mine (and also me, I’ll confess) would declare “Inge sucks” every time he got to the plate. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it was just true.
I also once accidentally wore a navy and white striped sweater during a Tigers/Yankees game, thinking surely this was safe because they were the Tigers colors as well. Nope, the Yankees won that day and I assure you I never wore that sweater during regular season baseball again.
Superstition and ritual is ingrained in baseball as surely as the unwritten (and written) rules are. Heck, Ian Kinsler’s walk-up song with the Tigers was “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder. Whether it’s Wade Boggs eating a bucket of chicken before a game, or Mark Fidrych doing this:
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Superstition is just everywhere in baseball.
For fans, it’s our weird and wonderful way to feel like we can cheat the universe, and force our team to win. If we flip our caps inside out, or never wash our jerseys, then maybe, just maybe, we can be the thing that helps push our beloved club to a win.
So we want to know: what are your special rituals and superstitions? Do you need a specific kind of beer at games, or maybe its a place you need to be to watch. Or are you like my buddy, yelling nonsensical things at the players in hopes it will work like a magical incantation?
Head over to the FanPost section and select “New FanPost” then tell us all about your most hilarious, or long-standing baseball superstition.