Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0004/00048.txt

Text File | 1994-01-05 | 12KB | 187 lines

$Unique_ID{BAS00048}
$Title{Mascots and Superstitions}
$Author{
Nelson, Don}
$Subject{Mascots Superstitions Mascot Superstition}
$Log{}

Total Baseball:  The Players


Mascots and Superstitions

Don Nelson


When the New York Mets received their supply of lucky buckeyes just in time
for the 1987 stretch run, some people probably figured that the division
championship was in the bag. After all, hadn't rally caps served the Mets
well in 1986? The buckeyes, believed to have mystical powers, were sent in
from some solicitous Mets fans at the far-off Jack Daniel's Distillery in
Lynchburg, Tennessee (population 361).
     Rubbing lucky buckeyes did not work for the Mets and against the
Cardinals in 1987, but modern ballplayers are at a distinct disadvantage
compared to those of the past. Years ago, players and teams had the powerful
help of hairpins and chewing gum, for instance, to accomplish the same things.
Jake Powell, during his last season in the minors, found 202 lucky hairpins
and rapped out 202 hits that year. (Jake played outfield for the Senators,
Yanks, and Phils in the 1930s and '40s.)  And Waite Hoyt claimed to have won
23 games for the Yankees in 1928 by merely sticking gum to the button of his
cap. Nothing illegal about that.
     This is not to say that ballplayers are no longer superstitious. Wade
Boggs eats chicken before every game; Manager Sparky Anderson avoids stepping
on the foul lines; players walk around in stinking socks, afraid to change
them for fear of breaking a good streak of some kind.
     The book Superstition! by Willard Heap says, "Baseball is considered
America's national sport and baseball players undoubtedly lead all other
athletes in their devotion to superstition. As a class they are probably more
susceptible to jinxes than any other body of professional players in the
world." That passage, written in 1972, may still be true, but ballplayers as
a class today are apparently more confident of their skills and less fearful
of Jonahs, jinxes, hexes, and hoodoos. At least that is what some research
suggests.
     I looked at baseball people's relationship to that most unlucky of
numbers: 13. I examined the preseason rosters of all major league clubs in
1967 and at ten-year intervals (in 1977 and 1987) to see if there were any
trends regarding how many players, coaches, and managers have been assigned
uniform number 13. I took as my total sample all those players who had been
assigned uniform numbers 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. If routinely assigned, each
number from 11 through 15 should represent about 20 percent of the
"population" of these numbers. The middle number, 13, has never come close to
its "normal" share. But on the other hand, the percentage of those who defied
superstition and put on the dreaded number has more than doubled over the
20-year period.
     Is this a trend? I would say no. A check of the 1990 and 1993 numbers has
stalled at around 11-12 percent of all numbers 11 through 15. Uniform number 7
(lucky 7, that is) has declined in use by 18 percent over the same period.
     Only a handful of performers ventured out with a big 13 on their backs in
1967, including three pitchers--Blue Moon Odom, Steve Barber and Turk Farrell.
By 1977, Blue Moon still had his lucky (?) 13, but he was cut before the
season began. By then, not only pitchers were throwing caution to the wind.
Shortstop Dave Concepcion and catchers Joe Ferguson and Lance Parrish, to name
a few, likewise laughed at folklore and donned the dreaded 13.
     In 1987, Concepcion and Ferguson were still tempting fate with their
13s--Ferguson by now was a coach. Their ranks were joined by the likes of Lee
Mazzilli, Mike Pagliarulo, Ruppert Jones, and Ozzie Guillen. Is this a trend?
I would say so. By 1997, number 13 may approach a "normal" distribution of 20
percent of all numbers 11 through 15.
     Ralph Branca was one of the first to venture out in full view of the
multitudes wearing a 13 on his shirt. And we all know what Bobby Thomson did
to him in the 1951 National League playoffs. Odom believed in countering
superstitions with aggressive taunts. Besides displaying a 13 on his back, he
also liked to step on the foul lines. Concepcion, on the other hand, has been
a bit more cautious. He crosses himself before batting, perhaps to nullify
the 13 hex.
     What is a superstition anyway? A superstition is defined as a belief
that some action or circumstance not logically or casually related to a course
of events influences the outcome. We must be careful to differentiate between
superstitions and rituals.
     Thus when John McGraw hired someone to haul around a wagonload of
good-luck barrels where his players could see them, that was pure
superstition. But when Hank Aaron slowly and deliberately put on his batting
helmet before stepping into the batter's box, that was ritual. The barrels
were totally unrelated to the game and performance, whereas Aaron's repeated
ceremony must have put him in just the right mood to hoist 'em out.
     Talismans and trinkets and hairpins and barrels are all interesting as
good-luck charms and bad-luck baubles. But these are all inanimate objects.
Some of the more interesting tales of superstition involve living icons: the
use of boys, dogs, blacks, and hunchbacks as good-luck mascots.
     Team photos from the 19th century often include mascots, usually little
boys, black and white. An 1888 team photo includes two greyhounds. Even the
baseball writers had mascots, judging from a picture of a group of scribes
with a young boy. Rubbing a black's hair brought luck; touching a hunchback's
hump also was sure to yield base hits for batters and strikes for pitchers.
Understand that times were different then in terms of racial attitudes and
respect for the handicapped.
     Mascots and superstitions in general had their greatest impact on the
game early in this century. It was an "Age of Magic," as John Holway called
it, writing in The National Pastime. Magic began to be a presence on baseball
diamonds just before 1910, continued forcefully throughout the teens, but
largely seemed to vanish in a ghostly haze by the early 1930s.
     We pick up the magic trail in 1908. That fiery Southerner Ty Cobb
"discovered" a black urchin, "Li'l Rastus," whom he "kept around" for good
luck, yet whom he also kept hidden from public view, according to Anthony
Papalas, writing in the 1984 Baseball Research Journal. Li'l Rastus seemed to
be bringing a run of luck, but when a losing streak and missing equipment
showed up simultaneously, he was kicked out of the clubhouse. Li'l Rastus
defected to the Cubs for the World Series and the Chicagoans beat the Tigers.
He made somewhat of a comeback with the Bengals in 1909. George Mullin once
"stole" him from under Cobb's bunk and put him under his own. Mullin worked a
shutout the next day and got three hits, Papalas reports. But the Tigers lost
the world title again, this time to the Pirates.
     It was also in 1909 that Louis Van Zelst, a dwarf-hunchback with a body
misshapen from a childhood accident, became the A's mascot. The A's made a
good stretch run that year, but lost the pennant to the Tigers.
     In 1910 Connie Mack gave Van Zelst a full contract as batboy; the little
fellow traveled with the team in uniform, inviting players to pat his hump.
The A's won the pennant and the Series.
     In 1911 the ultimate confrontation between opposing human good-luck
charms was assured when Mack's A's, with little Louis and McGraw's Giants
clashed for the world title. For, as Holway writes, the Giants "themselves
carried one of the most famous good-luck charms in the annals of baseball,
Charles Victor Faust."
     Faust, though (perhaps) retarded or psychotic or both, was neither animal
nor boy nor black nor physically disfigured. Thomas Busch, writing in the
1983 Baseball Research Journal, tells of how Faust came from Kansas to New
York hoping to play for the Giants, but wound up as a mascot. Busch described
him as 6'2" and weak-eyed, "a gawky, awkward, grinning farmboy who, whether
walking or running, moved with a loping trot that reminded one of a jackrabbit
hopping across a prairie." Holway was more concise, calling Faust "a lunatic
Kansas hayseed." Busch was not so sure of Faust's lunacy. He thought he may
have been a "skillful self-promoter" or even an "eccentric genius" of the
Veeck-Finley mold. In today's parlance, he may have been merely a flake.
     Whatever, Faust actually appeared as a pitcher in two Giants games,
something no dog, young boy, or deformed dwarf ever did.
     Meanwhile, back at the 1911 World Series, Van Zelst outcharmed Faust
(whose middle name had taken on a Y as in Victory). The A's prevailed.
     As an added fillip to that season and the Series, Holway relates that the
Giants' Leon "Red" Ames "was considered a hoodoo pitcher, the unluckiest man
in baseball, until an actress gave him a lucky necktie soon after Faust joined
the team; helped by both Faust and the tie, Ames won five of his last six
(regular season) games.
     "In game six [of the Series, however, Chief] Bender went up against Ames,
who had foolishly thrown away his lucky tie. In the fourth inning, the Giants
fell apart, allowing four runs, three on errors, including one fumble by Ames.
The A's were champs again."
     Van Zelst stayed with the A's, mascoting them to pennants in 1913 and
1914. The Athletics beat the Giants again in the 1913 fall classic. Faust,
who had fallen out of favor with McGraw, was not on the bench to counteract
Louis's spell.
     The 1914 Series is interesting in that Van Zelst, Mack, and the A's were
pitted against the Miracle Braves and George Stallings, "probably the most
superstitious man ever to manage in the major leagues," according to Holway.
"[Stallings] had so many lucky charms that he kept them in a trunk which the
equipment manager lugged from city to city," Holway says.
     The Braves' miraculous dash from last place to first began after
Stallings added another trinket to his trunk, "a lucky 10 piece blessed by a
Cuban witch doctor known as the "black pope." Van Zelst could not overcome
Stallings' voodoo, and the Braves swept the A's.
     Luck ran out for both little hunchbacked Louis and the grinning,
gap-toothed Charles Victor(y) Faust in 1915. Louis didn't go to spring
training, sickened, and died at age twenty before the season began. Without
Van Zelst, the A's finished last that year and the following six as well.
     Faust died in a hospital for the insane far from New York in mid-1915 at
age thirty-four. The Giants also landed in the cellar that year.
     The next memorable mascot to come along--and arguably the luckiest and
longest-lasting of the lot--showed up in a Chicago White Sox uniform in 1917.
As a batboy, little Eddie Bennett won the Series for the Sox in 1917, but he
was up against more sinister forces on his own team in 1919--they were the
losing Black Sox. Bennett moved to Brooklyn in 1920; the Dodgers promptly won
the pennant. The Yankees knew a good thing when they saw it. They decided
that Babe Ruth wasn't enough. Bennett became the Yankees' full-time batboy
and official mascot in 1921, and, of course, the Yankees grabbed the flag.
The hunchbacked man-child stayed with the club until he was seriously injured
in an automobile accident in midseason of 1933, according to Murderers' Row
author G.H. Fleming.
     During his years with the Bronx Bombers, with Ruth and Lou Gehrig and
others rubbing his back for luck, the team won seven pennants and four world
championships. Like Faust and Van Zelst, Bennett met an untimely and early
end, dying from alcoholism in 1935 at the age of thirty-two.
     Did the Age of Magic die with him?
     Today lucky uniform number 7 is out; unlucky 13 is in. Mascots, barrels,
and hairpins are out; cork, sandpaper, and Vaseline are in. Still, baseball
players treat foul lines like hot wires. Striking out the first batter is
still a bad omen. And speaking of a no-hitter while it is being pitched
always brings a barrage of hits. As long as we have Rally Caps and Homer
Hankies, the Age of Magic will live on.