Baseball Postseason is Ripe for Superstitions
But maybe these rituals aren’t as crazy as they seem.
It’s postseason time in baseball. The beards are out, the special hats are on, and every other baseball superstition is running high. Fans certainly participate, but it’s the players who are known for their unusual antics.
Whether talking about Texiera’s wearing of two different socks, Boggs’ taking exactly 150 grounders for practice, players with excessive pine tar on a helmet, or peeing on their hands (seriously, one player actually does this), superstition is a huge part of baseball.
What if it’s not all as crazy as it sounds?
No one here is suggesting peeing on yourself, but let’s examine this. It’s said that:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
This seems to imply the inverse as well. If you want the same result, do the same thing over again. That would be sane, right? There’s clearly a line where sports rituals are unrelated to the sport, but should eating a certain meal pre-game or wearing a particular beloved hat be held in the same realm as polishing a ring or touching a particular base while taking the field?
Consistency
A powerlifter’s goal when setting up for the squat is to do it perfectly and in exactly the same way every time. Not because of any ritual but because the more precise and consistent the body alignment, the better the chances of making a successful lift.
There is such a thing as an ideal golf swing, and a perfect basketball shot, though perhaps no one has ever actually performed one. We teach kids in sports to attempt to replicate as near to perfect a set of movements as they are able, and when they succeed we say “do that again, just like that”.
In software programming there’s code reuse, or the idea of classes — in short, “we’ve built this thing for a purpose, and it does it well, so keep using it again and again as-is.”
When Change Makes Sense
Many companies today act as if the only constant is change. Change for its own sake throws out the wisdom of the past, the nearness to perfection that’s been earned through practice and iteration.
That’s not to say that there aren’t a wide variety of nonsensical superstitions; many professional ballplayers even say “I don’t know why I do that”, but companies and individuals alike could learn to take more time in evaluating when it is time to make a change.
People change diets or workouts every few weeks and don’t see the change they want in their life. Habits don’t change or develop overnight either, they require time. An organizational or technological change takes time to show an impact.
Most changes should be course corrections with an eye towards a well-defined goal. Sometimes a hard left turn or a 180 is necessary, but that should not be the norm.
Results = Change x (Timing) + Consistency over time
Results equal the right change at the right time and the consistency of activity over time following the change. Sports superstitions, at heart, come down to this with sometimes misguided attribution as to what caused the result.
Whether in life, health, business, or sports, sometimes the comfort and constancy of a ritual (or superstition) is the right answer.
Writer, fitness enthusiast, and unapologetic geek, Matt’s educational background started with a B.S. in Computer Science. He currently works in analysis and database design for a large company and serves as an advisor to the Corsairs group.
