Tag Archives: American

Baseball Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2007

My informant is a pitcher on the baseball team, and he told me that the first game that he started this season he had gotten  a brand new pair of baseball socks from the manager, because the ones he had been wearing had too many holes in them. That night he had a really good game and won. From then on, he says that he has been wearing a new pair of socks every time he has gone out to pitch.

It wasn’t anything he planned on doing, and nobody suggested that he do it. Neither him nor I had ever heard of another instance of a person who did the same thing. There have been instances in sports where players will, for good luck, do things like where the same socks or other articles of clothing, or use the same equipment (like a bat or shoes), while their performance is good. My guess is that he subconsciously feels that by wearing new  socks every time he pitches he is somehow starting fresh, free from the memory of the successes, and failures, of the past.

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine.

Nationality: American
Age: 60
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant first heard this saying from her grandmother when she was a child. She said that her grandmother was teaching her to sew using the baste method, which uses one long stitch over a piece of fabric in order to hold the fabric together for the main stitches which are smaller. My informant told me that along with the reasoning for using this method, her grandmother used the phrase, “A stitch in time saves nine.”, meaning that using this method, even though it seemed time-wasting and tedious, would save time in the ling run by keeping the the fabric in place and preventing mistakes when sewing the small stitches.

The person who originally said the phrase was Benjamin Franklin. My informant’s grandmother likely read it in his Poor Richard’s Almanac. Benjamin Franklin wrote the almanac under the pseudonym “Poor Richard” between 1733 and 1758. My informant’s grandmother used the phrase in a situation that actually involved a stitch, but the saying can also be applied to a number of situations.

Baseball Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant gave me an example of a superstition about the foul lines in baseball. He told me that before a
baseball game it is bad luck to step on the foul lines before the game starts. He first learned of the superstition when he
was in little league, and a teammate of his told him not to step on the foul lines. My informant had no idea why it was bad luck, and his teammate was no help because he didn’t know either.
You see, on a baseball field the lines are either painted, or made with chalk. Usually this is done well before the
start of the game. A team will usually start getting ready for a game about three hours prior to the game. They will play
catch down the foul lines in the outfield, (But at no time during the catch play will anyone step on the line), take ground
balls and batting practice. After all this, the field is re-prepared for the game; the dirt is raked and smoothed over, and
new bases are put in, all the while the foul lines stay straight and neat. My guess is that the field of play is very important to a ballplayer, not every field is the same, there can be bad hops in the infield and bad bounces of the walls in the outfield, so to respect it by keeping it in good shape could only be good for a ballplayer, therefore any mistreatment to it would warrant “bad luck”.

Irish Shoe Superstition

Nationality: Irish-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant is of Irish decent, and he told me of an old superstition he learned about shoes in the home. Apparently,  the Irish believe that it is bad luck to put one’s shoes on a table in the house. He has no idea as to the reason for such a superstition, all he knows is that in his house whether you believe it or not you’re afraid to find out if it is true.

The reason for this superstition may be unknown, but there is another version that I have come across on the internet. The other version says that it is bad luck to put one’s shoes on the bed, and the reasoning behind it is that it would bring a death in one’s family.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Nationality: American
Age: 61
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant first heard the phrase from her husband about twenty years ago. The two of them were in their car in the parking lot of a shopping center looking for a space to park in. The parking lot was quite full, and my informant was getting impatient, as they had been driving around looking for a space for some time. Finally the husband came upon a parking space deep in the back of the parking lot. My informant did not want to have to walk that far to the store, so she told her husband to continue looking for a space closer to the store she wanted to go to. At this, the husband told my
informant, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

The husband used this analogy to explain that even though the spot they found was not the bast spot, continuing to search for a closer spot that didn’t exist at the time was not wise because there were no guarantees that they would ever actually find that closer spot. In other words, the spot they had was better than the prospective closer spot that wasn’t available.

Annotation: This phrase can be found in the Living Bible Version of the Bible in Ecclesiastes 6:9.