Hats Off To Superstitions -- Winning Axiom: Don't Change A Thing

For some reason - could it have been drizzle? - I grabbed an old red Rainier baseball cap from the closet shelf one day last month on my way out to cover a Seattle Mariner game.

They won.

I wore it again a week or so later. They won.

I wore it to the Oakland game on a Sunday in which Tino Martinez homered in the ninth to beat Dennis Eckersley.

I wore it to the AL West playoff game against the Angels. We know how that went.

I didn't take it to the first two playoff games in New York. Two losses.

That's when catcher Dan Wilson stepped in. "Where's the hat?" he said.

Unknowingly, I had started a routine that seemed to coincide with Mariner success. In many areas of life, sports more than most, baseball more than most sports, you stay with what makes you a winner.

My headwear was a winner, as Wilson had declared it, a lucky lid.

Since then, I've been the one before, during and after playoff games in a red hat. Yes, I'm more than a bit self-conscious. But I'm also 25 years around baseball and I know not to mess with supernatural mindsets. I have to work with these guys every day. They may lose, but it's not going to be on account of me.

This game is made of balls and strikes, fair and foul, hits, runs, errors, and streaks and slumps and superstitions.

Fueled by the run into the playoffs and thus far through them, Tino Martinez and Vince Coleman leave their Seattle hotel at the same time each day to eat at the same Chinese restaurant.

"And every day we eat the same meals," Martinez said. "So now when they see us come in, we don't even have to order. They just start cooking."

Coleman is a bit longer in the game. He has eaten Chinese food every day of the season for 11 seasons. That's a ton of won ton soup. "Actually, I have General Tso's and egg drop soup," the left fielder said. "With a 7-Up. Tino has a Diet Coke."

And perhaps you thought Edgar Martinez's batting title and most-valuable-player credentials were based on his eagle eye and sound stroke? How naive.

"I wear my lucky wrist bands, or do different things with my bats," the two-time American League batting champ said. "If we lose a game, I drive home a different way."

Randy Johnson does not have superstitions anymore. One time, he felt he had to wear a rock group T-shirt under his uniform jersey every day. "I still use them," he said, "to polish my car. Now I just go out there with belief in my abilities."

Ken Griffey and Jay Buhner have ability and superstition, although Junior at first denied it. "Superstition is the sign of a weak mind," he said, with feigned studiousness. "OK, I'll give you one of mine. . . . I pick Jay up every day."

Griffey, who plays cards every day with Chris Widger, Bob Wells and Jeff Nelson, just didn't want to admit to excess routine.

Buhner, however, told all. Not only does good neighbor Griffey pick him up every day, he brings the 7-Ups. "We drive the same route, we even have to stop for a train," he said. "We know it's coming and if we went just a bit quicker we'd be past the crossing. But when we've waited, we've won. So we wait for it."

Frank as ever, Buhner says he and Griffey step on third base as they go on the field to start a game in the Kingdome, then they touch gloves. "Then as I go past second," he said. "I spit on the bag. When we throw warmups in the outfield, my last one to Junior is always a knuckleball. Always."

Buhner describes the quirks as, "routines, disciplines, as much as superstition." When a game is won and the team is on defense, the three outfielders meet at second and high-five gloves. When Buhner hits a homer he touches his hands to his hat as he steps on home plate.

"And speaking of hats, check this out," he said, holding out the much-worn Mariner cap. "I've worn only one home hat and one road hat all year. Those road hats can get pretty raunchy after a rainy night. They toss them in the hat box when the game is done, still wet. A week later you go back on the road and you got mildew and muck all over the brim, and it don't smell real pretty, either."

And fans think life in the big leagues is all fame and fortune.

"And how about my shoes," he said. "These are not very comfortable. But if I changed to another pair, the guys would kill me."

In every game, you can see the mannerisms that became part of a players' get-set, go. Joey Cora, who always wears pins in his hat, steps through the batter's box for right-handers, over the plate and into the left-handers' box; always steps on third when going on the field.

Mike Blowers' routine between pitches is about as complicated as the details of the infield fly rule. Set hat on head firmly. Take off glove. Hitch belt. Put on glove. Spit into glove. Rub spit into glove. Go into crouch.

"They're almost timing things, crazy things, all for a reason that we've probably forgotten long ago," Blowers said. "I can't even divulge some of mine. Yet everyone has them and they become so commonplace to preparing for a game and playing it, you finally don't even notice them going on around you."

When it comes to timing routines, Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove might have been the worst in baseball history during an at-bat. Between each pitch he stepped out, rested his bat against a thigh, tightened each batting glove, practiced a swing or two, stepped in with his left leg, then his right, swung three times, and then was set. He was called The Human Rain Delay.

Wade Boggs, with Boston and now with New York, may be one of the best-known players for quirks outside of games. Not only does he eat chicken every day (his wife has approximately 40 recipes), but he goes on the field to stretch and sprint at the same minute before each game.

Before Mariner games, Manager Lou Piniella takes the lineup card out, or has a coach do it. Whoever gets a win keeps doing it until he loses. Griffey did it for several games in August.

Piniella wears the same stirrup socks until Seattle loses several games close together, then tosses them and breaks out a new pair.

The manager has gotten into a routine of doing several words of the crossword puzzles always floating around the coaches' room before going out for pregame hitting.

During batting practice, Mariner players always hit in the same order if they won the game before.

In fact, it was during pregame work Wednesday that many confessed their quirks.

Except for Dan Wilson, who looked at me and asked, "Where's the hat?"

I cannot alibi. I left it in the press box, intending to wear it once the game started. Was I trying to test the theory? Or was I just plain dumb?

You know what happened that night. I feel as if I had as much to do with the outcome as Cleveland pitcher Orel Hershiser.

Afterward, Wilson looked at me in the clubhouse and shook his head.

"Why would you try something different?" he asked, poking fun . . . I think.

"If you used elephant spray and they never charged you," he said, "would you stop using the spray to see if that was what kept you safe?"

No.

And, yes. My hat is with me in Cleveland. I could be naked, but I will be wearing the red hat.