By Nicholas Cottle
Baseball is filled with elements of chance and accident. It is a world of unknowns, a place of bad hops, untimely bloopers and lucky hits, with a lot of time in between to think about it.
Rituals, taboos and fetishes are a way for players to have some control in a game filled with many uncontrollable situations.
The BYU baseball team was on an extensive losing streak, with a record of 1-9 in their first ten games, when they decided it was time to try something different.
'It was the first series in Southern Utah and our backs were to the wall in having to win a series, and believe it or not they all gave themselves crew cuts,' BYU coach Vance Law said. 'They convinced me to do it too. So I joined in, and it was about that time that we started to play better baseball.'
The ritual not only led the Cougars to their first series win of the season but it was the birth of a 32-19 post-ritual record.
Rituals and taboos in baseball usually stem from a player or team having an incredible performance, whether really bad or really good.
Because the performance is extraordinary, the player or team does not attribute the success to abilities alone, but too something else they did, like touching a mascots head, wearing a medallion, or what he ate.
In Baseball Magic by George J. Gmelch, Kansas City minor league pitcher Fred Caviglia said: 'Everything you do is important to winning. I never forget what I eat the day of a game or what I wear. If I pitch well and win I''ll do it all exactly the same the next day I pitch. You''d be crazy not to. You can''t ever tell what''s going to make the difference between winning and losing.'
Gmelch wrote: 'One commonly known taboo in baseball is the mention of a no-hitter that is in progress. It is the belief that if the pitcher hears the words ''no-hitter'' his spell is broken and the no-hitter lost.'
In contrast, fetishes are more of lucky charms such as rabbit''s feet, jewelry and coins.
The fetish the BYU baseball team chose was a bag of hair.
'For most the season they actually kept the hair from their crew cuts in a bag and brought it with them on the road,' Law said. 'I thought it was petty gross, but they brought it with them and somebody was always in charge of the hair bag.'
For the Cougars the hair was their lucky charm or fetish, embodied with supernatural power to help them win.
Many baseball players and athletes in general, take their superstitions seriously, truly believing that their success is coming from more than just their own abilities.
So next time Albert Pujols hits a home run, it may not be his talent alone, it may also be what he ate that morning.