One of my favorite off-season topics has always been baseball superstitions, The fact that new stats and pennant races come to a halt in between seasons just seems to help the process of study move along better without distractions. A big help also was a little paperback that a fellow named Mike Blake put together back in 1991, It was called, and honestly so, “The Incomplete Book of Baseball Superstitions, Rituals and Oddities.” This morning, we will just edge into a few of the interesting superstitions that have to do with food, according to Blake.
(1) Jimmy Wynn. Jimmy supposedly believed he got his power from honey. According to Blake, Wynn “Ate jars of the stuff whenever possible.
(2) Nolan Ryan. Nolie is said to have eaten vanilla ice cream and chili beans prior to many big games because he believed these two foods both calmed the nerves and aided digestion. We will assume that they weren’t mixed together on the same plate prior to consumption.
(3) Greg Swindell. Not sure how this one qualifies as “food” other than being something a player could put in his mouth, but re Swindell used to bite off a long finger nail prior to a pitching start, making sure to keep that mail in his mouth as a chewing object all the while he worked the mound. Swindell said that he never chewed to tobacco at the same time because that substance ruined the taste of the finger nail. Greg earns our “Big Barf” award of the day.
(4) Mike Cuellar ate Chines food the night before his pitching starts, except when he pitched in Milwaukee. In the wisconsin city, Cuellar always dropped into a particular restaurant and had several bowls of beef stew before he pitched.
(5) Charlie Kerfeld. During his Houston Astros days, Charlie was caught by the television cameras ordering a couple of spare rib plates while he was waiting to be called into a game from the bullpen. No superstition pattern is attached to Kerfeld’s behavior in this instance.
(6) Bill “Spaceman” Lee supposedly had a pre-game preference for organic buckwheat pancakes, sprinkled with a half-ounce of marijuana.
(7) Frank “Hondo” Howard, in a pattern spurred as much by his size and a certain level of gluttony as it was superstition, routinely downed a half dozen hamburgers, three milk shakes, a half dozen orders of fries, and a couple of dessert pastries as his pre-game road meal.
(8) Ben McDonald of the Baltimore Orioles used to prefer cans of mustard sardines before his starts on the mound.
(9) Sid Fernandez preferred baked potatoes covered with mustard, rather than butter, prior to pitching starts, or any other time, for that matter. He felt mustard saved calories and made for a healthier meal.
(10) Rick Rice, a minor league pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles used to eat frog legs prior to a game because he thought they made his fastball jump. Apparently they didn’t help it jump enough. He never reached the big leagues.
That’s enough for a busy Saturday. Hope you’re having a lunch today that will help you get done whatever it is you need to get done. Just don’t be too superstitious about it. If you get lost in a food superstition by chance, just grab a pinch of salt and toss it over your left shoulder with your right hand, That should make it go away.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
November 7, 2009 at 5:26 pm |
Great stuff! Thanks.
November 7, 2009 at 8:40 pm |
Frank Howard also used to down close to a case of Bud on the bus back to the hotel on the road. “If you’re gonna pound the baseball tomorrow, you got to pound the Budweiser tonight.”