Tag Archives: Sports

Backyard Football

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Radio producer and sports media
Residence: Lake Bluff, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/18/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant used to play tackle football – yes that’s right, TACKLE football – in a friend’s backyard, with no pads or helmets or anything.  His friend had a large enough backyard to accommodate play.  Also this was, according to my informant, back in the days before wavers and rampant lawsuits and whatnot.  If you got hurt, you got hurt and went home and that was the end of that.  So everyone would get together at this one person’s house and divide up into teams, usually it would be 5 on 5, but sometimes as big as 7 on 7.  It was self-hike, and you could pass or run.  The backyard was big but it wasn’t quite football field huge, so there were no distance markers, just two end zones marked out.  You had to get a first down or a touchdown or else you would be forced to give up the ball.  First downs were obtained by making two complete passes.  Players were also allowed to throw lateral passes during plays, making the game very “Razzle Dazzle” as my informant put it.

While I have never played padless tackle football, I have played several games of small-field football.  Usually there were one of two ways you could make a first down.  Either you had to cross the halfway point of the field, or you had to make two complete passes during your first four downs.  Also when the ball was turned over on downs, the other team simply took their ball all the way back to where it would be if the original team had made a touchdown.  Interceptions, on the other hand, are played at the spot where the interceptor is deemed down.  Back in the 70’s though, people were not as uptight as they are now about kids getting hurt and roughhousing and such, and parental supervision was hardly required for kids to play sports.  This does not necessarily mean that parents were less concerned with the safety of their children than they are now, but instead that no one wants to get sued, so they make sure that no harm befalls their children or, more importantly, that no harm befalls other children while they are around.  As soon as someone figured out that you can so another person when your child gets hurt at their house, everyone was in a hurry to make sure playdates and games were absolutely safe, lest they get their butt sued.

Baseball Superstition for Keeping in the Zone

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: English

Uh, so baseball players are really superstitious, because it’s a really slow game unlike other sports. And a lot of it’s, like, mental, um, and so uh lots of players are like extremely superstitious so like if they’re hitting very well or the team’s winning, they’ll do like the same pregame rituals before every game. So, uh, if for instance someone’s like in a slump and they’re not doing well for like 6 or 7 games, and the next game he hits a home run or he does really well, uh, he’ll at whatever he ate that morning and he’ll like that superstition of how he did well. And also he’ll, he’ll eat the same meals before games and then uh in his head I would assume he’s attributing that to his better play. Um, and other players will like wear the same socks, or they’ll like won’t wash their Jersey, uh, cause I guess, uh, Baseball’s so streaky that players like attribute lots of their success to like these weird superstitions.
Uh so in baseball, uh, it’s pretty rare that a pitcher throws a no-hitter, it’s—it probably happens two or three times, maybe, a season. But it’s always uh it’ll be prevalent in games a lot and it’ll be broken up by the end, and so uh about like 5 to 6 innings into a baseball game, if a pitcher hasn’t allowed a hit in yet fans and like stat people will kind of like when there’s a no-hitter like possibility, it’s always like a big deal. They’ll like alert, ESPN will alert viewers and stuff, and, um, and during that time no one will talk to the pitcher, there’s just like an unspoken rule that like whenever they haven’t allowed a hit the managers, the pitching coaches, like the numerous coaches won’t talk to him, other players wouldn’t talk to him, and so the pitcher would just be in his zone, he’ll just like walk back and sit in the dugout while he’s waiting, um, yeah.

Baseball players are superstitious, and believe that once one is performing well at the sport, one must not make any changes to one’s routine or endanger themselves to falling out of “the zone.” The belief in and practice of these superstitions make the team closer and identify them as ball players, and baseball is perhaps the most superstitious of the major American sports due to its mental nature. Practicing these superstitions also provides a placebo effect, as the belief that it keeps the players in “the zone,” likely succeeds in helping keep them focused on the game.

Rally Monkey

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: English

Okay, uh, in like, um, in like 2000, so like the 2000, 2001, baseball season, uh, the Los Angeles Angels, who, er, at the time they were the Anaheim Angels, uh, they were losing in a regular season game with the Giants, and, uh, during like the bottom of the 8th inning, uh, one of the, on the Jumbo Tron, one of the graphics people, uh, played a clip from Ace Ventura, the Jim Carrey movie, that had like uh, uh, a foot long monkey running around, and they wrote, uh, “Rally Monkey” on it, and so the crowd that went to the Jumbo Tron, and I guess they kind of laughed about it, and in that inning the Angels came back and won, and so that became a huge phenomenon for like Angels fans and stuff. Even throughout the MLB it was like a iconic thing. It was like the Rally Monkey they would call it. And, uh, it got to the point they would bring, they actually, the Angeles organization actually bought like a monkey, I guess, and they had like a little Angel’s hat, and they’d bring it out, uh, in between innings. And the crowd would go crazy for it, and they started selling, uh, like plush toys of it that people would buy. Like I had one. And, um, so like whenever in the later end, the later innings, when the Angel’s were losing, uh, you’d like swing the monkey around, so you’re in the stadium, there’d be like hundreds—like thousands of people, all just like swinging monkeys around, and yelling, like, “Rally Monkey time!” And in the 2002 season, uh, they ended up winning the World Series, and it was like at the height of like the Rally Monkey era, like they would play it on the Jumbo Tron and it was like there were known for like, “Oh, the Rally Monkey!” stuff. And so they won the World Series and that’s the highest honor you can get, and so that was like a huge part of the season. And, um, after that season the Rally Monkey was around, but they started losing a lot, and now it’s gone forever. And it was kind of like, uh, a 2 season thing that’s gone now.

This is the story of the rise and fall of a sports tradition. The Rally Monkey was a superstitious, homeopathic form of magic, where swinging a plush monkey could bring luck to the players of the Angels. The tradition died after the Angels won the World Series and started losing, and it is now a part of the team’s and the fans’ heritage. Knowing about the Rally Monkey also was a way of creating group identity and community. One had to be initiated into the team fan group to be aware of the superstition, and to understand why Ace Ventura would play at the Angels games. At the time you were not really a fan unless you knew the tradition and participated.

Sport Television Crew Folk Belief

Nationality: Eastern European Jew
Age: 49
Occupation: Instructional Assistant in an Elementary School
Residence: Calabasas, California
Performance Date: March 17, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“Make eye contact with a midget and its overtime and extra innings.”

 

This folk belief refers to sporting events. At any point during a sports game, if someone working for the television crew makes eye contact with a midget the game will go into overtime or have extra innings.

The informant is a middle aged mother of two boys and works at an elementary school. She heard this folklore from her husband who is a sports cameraman. She learned of this folk belief while they were watching a baseball game that went into extra innings, and the informant’s husband stated that “someone must have looked a midget in the eye.”

The informant laughed at her husband when she learned of this superstition and could not believe that this belief was actually practiced in the sports community. However, she found from her husband that many people in the sports production industry follow this folk belief; although, she does not think that they actually believe if they look a midget in the eye it will affect the length of the game. This folk belief is significant to those in the television coverage industry because they have been preparing for the production of the game throughout the entire day, so by the end of the game, they are tired and want to go home. Thus, they do not want to stay there for extra innings or overtime and are incentivized to not want the length of the game extended.

I found this to be a shocking tradition that is quite rude to a specific class of people for no distinguishable reason. The informant and her husband do not know where the superstition originated and I could not find anything about it online. I also cannot think of a reason why something like this would have originated.

Lacrosse Superstitions

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/5/12

Playing sports in high school, I was familiar with sports superstitions and pre-game rituals that certain players might believe in. For this specific case, my informant is a sophomore midfielder on the USC lacrosse team. I asked him about any specific superstitions he might have. He told me that he wasn’t too unique in that he had a pair of lucky underwear, or compression shorts, that he would wear on every game day. “After my high school team won the state championship my senior year of high school, and I was wearing these compressions, I’ve thought they were lucky ever since”. He admits to not really believing and buying into superstitions, but noted “for some reason, I still would find myself nervous if I wasn’t wearing them. It’s like a sort of comfort; knowing that I’m in my element”.

He notes that for extremely important games, like playoffs or against UCLA, he also has a pair of lucky socks that he sports. Those, like the underwear, are also riddled with holes and battle scars. “It’s part of their personality, their history” he says. They are a special brand of “Adrenaline Lacrosse Socks” that have lacrosse players stitched on the side. I found it interesting to see that athletes such as him choose superstition over comfort and functionality in many situations. He noted that sometimes he gets blisters when he wears those socks because of all the holes.

“I just have to”, he says, “we have too much history together”.

Superstitions such as this span across the globe and are present in many different sports. I had seen rituals and superstitions such as this as a football player in high school where players would have lucky socks, boxers, t-shirts, and shoes. I believe that this superstition is here because players are constantly nervous to play their best, and any extra boost helps. Confidence is such an important aspect in sports, that I truly believe that if a player is more confident because they are wearing their ‘lucky’ clothing, that they will play better in the end.