Tag Archives: baseball

The Bride of the Ball Field

Age: 35

Location: Kailua Kona, Hawai’i

Text:

“So we’re getting back super late from an away game, like close to midnight. The field’s totally dark, no lights on anywhere, just the bus headlights. We all start unloading our gear, and I noticed the lady. At first I just stared out because I couldn’t tell what it was.

I tell everyone, ‘Do you guys see that?’ And we all look, and there’s this lady in a long white dress just walking the warning track. Slow, like she’s searching for something. At first we thought she was just some random person who wandered in, but the longer we watched her, the weirder it felt. She never looked at us, never changed her pace, never reacted at all.

Her dress was dragging behind her like it was floating, even though there was no wind. And she just kept making this slow loop around the field, head kind of tilted like she was looking for someone.

We all started unpacking the bus way faster. Like throwing bags out, not even caring where they landed because everyone just wanted to get to their cars and get out of there. By the time we left, she was still out there walking the field, not noticing us at all.

I thought about it for a while that night and recalled the dress looking like a wedding dress. Although I wasn’t sure, I thought that maybe she was searching for her husband.”

Context:

This ghost story was told to the informant by their baseball coach. The coach claimed to have encountered the apparition more than once over the years. He described the woman as a deserted bride who wanders the baseball field at night searching for the man who abandoned her on their wedding day

Analysis:

This legend blends personal testimony with the classic “white lady” ghost motif. The baseball field, normally filled with noise, players, and daylight becomes creepy when empty and dark. This creates the perfect setting for a spectral figure whose emotional trauma keeps her stuck to the space.

The lady’s slow pacing reveals her restlessness, mirroring her search for her husband who left her. The idea that she is only present at night reinforces her connection to liminality: she inhabits the darkness, the in-between spaces, and vanishes as the sun comes up.

Home Run Celebration

Text: “Every time I hit a home run, everyone at the plate [the base runners and the man on deck] waits and taps helmets when I arrive. We then run back to the dugout together where the rest of the team then celebrates as well.”

Context: My informant is a high school baseball player. He is a junior and hopes to play in college and beyond. This is his celebration every time he hits a home run. 

Analysis: Sports players very often have elaborate rituals associated with certain parts of their game. Sometimes, rituals help players feel calm and collected in important moments. In many cases, such as this one, rituals are meant to celebrate big moments in a game, such as scoring or making a big stop on defense. These rituals are often very performative and exaggerated in order to evoke excitement and energy in both the athlete’s teammates and the crowd. However, my informant’s ritual is rather understated. It is a subtle acknowledgement of his teammates before slightly rowdier celebrations begin back in the dugout. While he didn’t mention this during the interview, it is important to note that my informant is being scouted by colleges and professional organizations to play baseball at a higher level. So, while he is on the field and potentially on camera, he composes himself. Once he is out of sight in the dugout, he might get a little more boastful and excited with his teammates. While a seemingly insignificant part of sports, rituals like these are a way in which athletes present themselves to the outside world. Players can be labeled as “cocky” if their rituals are audacious, for better or for worse. On the other hand, many players, especially those who still are being recruited, may have to act out certain rituals that fit the standards of recruiters, even if it’s not how they truly wish to express themselves on the field. 

Baseball Curses

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: San Diego, CA

Text:
“There are tons of curses in baseball but the two main ones are the Curse of the Billy Goat and the Curse of the Bambino. The Curse of the Billy Goat was placed on the Chicago Cubs after a man brought his pet goat to Wrigley for a world series game. The goat was annoying the fans sitting around him so security very reasonably tried to kick the guy and his goat out. This enraged the man, who declared that the Cubs would never win the World Series ever again. It took 108 years but the Cubs finally broke the curse in 2016. The other major curse is the curse of the Bambino, which happened to the Boston Red Sox after they traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees. It’s impossible to know why they would even consider trading the greatest player ever to their arch rivals, and after making the trade in 1920 they didn’t win the World Series until 2004.”

Context:

My friend described both of these curses as if they were fact, which he later justified by saying that there’s no way a team could go 108 years without winning a World Series unless they had been cursed. In general my friend takes a very analytical approach to baseball, and he is very interested in advanced statistics and sabermetrics, which made it more surprising he would accept superstition as fact. He said that the baseball community overall accepts both of these curses as being real, undeniable things that happened. When I asked him more about this he brought up multiple incidents that were “proof” that the curses were real. For the Red Sox he mentioned the Bucky F. Dent incident, where the worst hitter on the Yankees hit a home run to eliminate the Red Sox, and the Bill Buckner incident where a horrible error by the Red Sox’s first baseman allowed the Mets to beat the Red Sox in the World Series. For the Cubs he mentioned the Steve Bartman incident, where a Cubs fan interfered with play which led to a late inning meltdown eliminating the Cubs from the playoffs. Despite my friend being focused on the analytical, statistically backed aspects of baseball he firmly believes that these curses are real.

Analysis:

Like my friend, I am also interested in statistics. Out of curiosity I calculated the odds of a team going 108 years without winning a World Series because on the surface that feels like an impossibly long drought. Surprisingly, the odds of any one team not winning over a 108 year stretch is 57%, meaning that it is more likely than not for a team to suffer that long of a drought. This statistical quirk, combined with the incidents my friend listed when I questioned him, reveal a lot about how superstitions form. First, it feels impossible for a team to go 108 years without winning (even though the opposite is true), which leads to people questioning how that can happen. This leads to a theory being formed, in this case the theory being that these teams are cursed. Once the theory is formed, confirmation bias leads to random events being attributed to the curse. So many superstitions spawn from a desire to have a better understanding of the world, and in this case the superstitions appeared out of a desire to understand counterintuitive statistics.

Standing at a Baseball Game

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: San Diego, CA

Text: 

“Standing while at a baseball game during a big moment jinxes it. And you jinx it more the earlier you stand. Like with runners on in a close game, if you stand at the beginning of the plate appearance that’s the biggest jinx possible. Or standing when Diaz (the New York Mets closer) starts a plate appearance. I don’t stand until it’s 3-2 bases loaded game 7 OR the guy in front of me stands.”

Context:
My friend is an enormous Mets fan. He has season tickets so he goes to almost every home game when he is not at college, and watches most away games on television. When I asked him what happens if you stand too early, he did not list any specific incidents, but did give specific theoretical events, such as an overexcited crowd causing the Mets closer to give up a home run or for their star first baseman to strike out. This is not a commonly held belief, it is shared between my friend and his father. It is also worth noting that my friend is very tall, so if he stands up it would be difficult for the person behind him to see.
Analysis:
This superstition is a reflection of how magical thinking is often born out of a desire to have control over events that are otherwise out of our hands. The interesting thing about this superstition is that the action he takes contradicts the rest of the crowd. While everyone else stands, he remains seated. By taking this individual action, he has an individual feeling of control over the outcome of the game, despite having no real influence on the result. This superstition could not exist if it was a widely held belief; it only exists because it allows my friend to feel a sense of individual control over something beyond his reach.

The George Santos Curse

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: San Diego, CA

Text:

In March of 2023, just before opening day, Congressman George Santos published a video on Twitter wearing a Mets jersey where he incorrectly chanted “Let’s go Mets”. This video was posted while he was enveloped in an enormous fraud scandal, which would ultimately lead to him being expelled from Congress and sentenced to seven years in prison. The moment that the video was released, my friend was convinced that George Santos had just cursed the Mets for the 2023 season. Despite starting the year as World Series favorites, the Mets went on to win less than half of their games and miss the playoffs. In 2024 after George Santos was expelled from Congress, the Mets unexpectedly made a playoff run which was proof to my friend that Santos cursed the Mets and the curse was lifted when he was gone.

Context:
My friend lives in New York’s third congressional district, which is the district Santos represented and where the Mets play home games. He was not old enough to vote when Santos was elected, but he hated him and wanted him to be removed from office. After Santos posted the cringeworthy video on Twitter, jokes appeared online that he had just cursed the Mets and that the Mets could never win with him in office. My friend latched onto this idea, and throughout the season whenever the Mets lost he would text me about how the George Santos curse is killing the Mets.

Analysis:

This belief is a clear example of Frazer’s idea of the Law of Similarity in magic. The Law of Similarity states that a magician will produce a desired effect by mimicking it. In this case George Santos was (unintentionally) the magician, and he transferred the negativity surrounding himself onto the Mets by wearing their jersey. Following this idea, it makes sense that the curse would be lifted after Santos was expelled. Prior to being expelled from office Santos was hated for being a fraudster, but after he was expelled people began to find him amusing. This changing energy surrounding Santos was reflected in the Mets turnaround, where they unexpectedly had a great season in 2024.