Transcription of Baseball Magic
1 1 Article 32 Baseball MagicGeorge GmelchOn each pitching day for the first threemonths of a winning season, DennisGrossini, a pitcher on a Detroit Tiger farmteam, arose from bed at exactly 10:00 1:00 he went to the nearest res-taurant for two glasses of iced tea and atuna sandwich. Although the afternoonwas free, he changed into the sweatshirtand supporter he wore during his last win-ning game, and, one hour before thegame, he chewed a wad of Beech-Nutchewing tobacco. After each pitch duringthe game he touched the letters on his uni-form and straightened his cap after eachball. Before the start of each inning he re-placed the pitcher s resin bag next to thespot where it was the inning before.
2 Andafter every inning in which he gave up arun, he washed his asked which part of the ritualwas most important, he said, You can treally tell what s most important so it allbecomes important. I d be afraid tochange anything. As long as I m winning,I do everything the same. Trobriand Islanders, according to an-thropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, feltthe same way about their fishing the Trobrianders, fishing tooktwo forms: in the inner lagoon where fishwere plentiful and there was little danger,and on the open sea where fishing wasdangerous and yields varied widely. Ma-linowski found that Magic was not used inlagoon fishing, where men could relysolely on their knowledge and skill.
3 Butwhen fishing on the open sea, Trobrian-ders used a great deal of magical ritual toensure safety and increase their , America s national pastime,is an arena in which players behave re-markably like Malinowski s Trobriandfishermen. To professional ballplayers, Baseball is more than just a game. It is anoccupation. Since their livelihoods de-pend on how well they perform, many usemagic to try to control the chance that isbuilt into Baseball . There are three essen-tial activities of the game pitching, hit-ting, and fielding. In the first two, chancecan play a surprisingly important pitcher is the player least able to con-trol the outcome of his own efforts.
4 Hemay feel great and have good stuff warm-ing up in the bullpen and then get into thegame and not have it. He may make a badpitch and see the batter miss it for a strikeout or see it hit hard but right into thehands of a fielder for an out. His best pitchmay be blooped for a base hit. He maylimit the opposing team to just a few hitsyet lose the game, or he may give up adozen hits but still win. And the good andbad luck don t always average out overthe course of a season. Some pitchers endthe season with poor won-loss records butgood earned run averages, and vice instance, this past season Andy Benesgave up over one run per game more thanhis teammate Omar Daal but had a betterwon-loss record.
5 Benes went 14 13,while Daal was only 8 12. Both pitchedfor the same team the Arizona Dia-mondbacks which meant they had thesame fielders behind them. Regardless ofhow well a pitcher performs, on everyouting he depends not only on his ownskill, but also upon the proficiency of histeammates, the ineptitude of the opposi-tion, and , which many observers call thesingle most difficult task in the world ofsports, is also full of risk and it s a home run, no matter howwell the batter hits the ball, fate deter-mines whether it will go into a waitingglove, whistle past a fielder s diving stab,or find a gap in the outfield.
6 The uncer-tainty is compounded by the low successrate of hitting: the average hitter gets onlyone hit in every four trips to the plate,while the very best hitters average onlyone hit every three trips. Fielding, as wewill return to later, is the one part of base -ball where chance does not play much ofa does the risk and uncertainty inpitching and hitting affect players? Howdo they try to exercise control over theoutcomes of their performance? Theseare questions that I first became interestedin many years ago as both a ballplayer andan anthropology student. I d devotedmuch of my youth to Baseball , and playedprofessionally as first baseman in the De-troit Tigers organization in the 1960s.
7 Itwas shortly after the end of one baseballseason that I took an anthropology coursecalled Magic , Religion, and Witch-craft. As I listened to my professor de-scribe the magical rituals of the TrobriandIslanders, it occurred to me that whatthese so-called primitive people didwasn t all that different from what myteammates and I did for luck and confi-dence at the ball AND RITUALSThe most common way players attempt toreduce chance and their feelings of uncer-tainty is to develop and follow a daily rou-tine, a course of action which is regularlyfollowed. Talking about the routines ball-players follow, Pirates coach Rich Don-nelly said:They re like trained animals.
8 Theycome out here [ballpark] and ev-ANNUAL EDITIONS2erything has to be the same, theydon t like anything that knocksthem off their routine. Just look atthe dugout and you ll see everyguy sitting in the same spot everynight. It s amazing, everybody inthe same spot. And don t you daretake someone s seat. If a guycomes up from the minors and sitshere, they ll say, Hey, Jim sitshere, find another seat. You watchthe pitcher warm up and he ll dothe same thing every time. Andwhen you go on the road it s thesame way. You ve got a routineand you adhere to it and you don twant anybody knocking you off are comforting, they bringorder into a world in which players havelittle control.
9 And sometimes practical el-ements in routines produce tangible ben-efits, such as helping the playerconcentrate. But what players often dogoes beyond mere routine. Their actionsbecome what anthropologists define asritual prescribed behaviors in whichthere is no empirical connection betweenthe means ( , tapping home plate threetimes) and the desired end ( , getting abase hit). Because there is no real connec-tion between the two, rituals are not ra-tional, and sometimes they are actuallyirrational. Similar to rituals are the non-rational beliefs that form the basis of ta-boos and fetishes, which players also useto reduce chance and bring luck to theirside.
10 But first let s look more closely rituals are personal, that is,they re performed by individuals ratherthan by a team or group. Most are done inan unemotional manner, in much thesame way players apply pine tar to theirbats to improve the grip or dab eye blackon their upper cheeks to reduce the sun sglare. Baseball rituals are infinitely var-ied. A ballplayer may ritualize any activ-ity eating, dressing, driving to theballpark that he considers important orsomehow linked to good example, Yankee pitcher Denny Nea-gle goes to a movie on days he is sched-uled to start. Pitcher Jason Bere listens tothe same song on his Walkman on thedays he is to pitch.
