I don’t believe in almost any superstition. There may be an exception or two I’m forgetting, but most of it is hogwash and hoodoo for the feeble-minded. And spare me your Crash Davis “if you believe you’re playing well because you’re getting laid, or because you’re not getting laid, or because you wear women’s underwear, then you *are*!” speech. Save it for someone who’s afraid to step on the foul line while walking out to the field.
But even if I don’t believe in the superstitions themselves, I do believe that such things can become accepted enough practices among a sufficient number of people that you should at least respect the beliefs of others, however misguided they may be in provenance. It’s not a matter of thinking that their violation will cause some great harm. Rather, it’s a matter of just being cool to someone and not violating a social code. I’ll note this is how I view religion too, which is why you’ll never hear me getting up in someone’s grill about what they believe as long as it’s not harming me or anyone else.
The point of all of this: if I was pitching a perfect game -- in San Francisco, say -- I don’t think I’d make a point to sit in the same spot in the dugout after each inning or not talk to anyone of whatever else it is that pitchers in such a situation do. It has no effect on how I’m pitching. The key would be to make sure I didn’t lose my concentration or mojo or whatever it was, and I don’t think I’d tie that to those sorts of things.
I would, however, if I were a position player on a team in which a pitcher was doing such things, make sure not to step on whatever it is he’s doing. It’s something that Brandon Belt didn’t do last night, as Andrew Baggarly of CSNBayArea reports:With Matt Cain closing in on the 22nd perfect game in major league history, and the first in the Giants’ 129 years as a franchise, Belt sat down in the dugout after the seventh inning to take a deep breath.
“I sat down and Cainer just stopped and stared at me,” said Belt, whose eyes grew wide with panic. “Yeah, I guess everything was OK until I sat in his seat.”Can you imagine the perfect game was lost right after that? Belt would probably want to go find a hole someplace in which to die. And it would suck for all of us Belt fanboys too, because the dude is just now starting to get some regular playing time, and I would bet that the ruckus all of that would cause would be enough for Bruce Bochy to exile him to Fresno or San Jose or points even farther away.