Catcher Mike LaValliere took one look at the lineup card posted in the visitors’ clubhouse at Camden Yards Sunday and went crazy.
“What’s going on here?” he screamed. “Isn’t anybody on this team superstitious?
“Where’s Bevington? Time for a meeting. I can’t believe this.”
LaValliere, the newest member of the White Sox, rounded up third base coach Terry Bevington-team calligrapher; the guy who writes out the lineup cards-and the two disappeared behind closed doors.
They emerged a few minutes later, smiling and agreed upon one important point of life:
“You don’t mess with the mojo,” said LaValliere, shaking his head. “You can do a lot of things. But never mess with the mojo.”
Mojo.
You know, mojo. As in black magic. Superstition. The mystical forces that control winning streaks and batting slumps. The unseen fates whose smile or frown can be the difference between a world championship and a heartbreaking loss on a bad-hop single.
Superstitions are everywhere. But probably nowhere are they more visible than in sports. And probably no sport has more superstitions than baseball.
Just listen to LaValliere. He insisted he isn’t superstitious. He’s just cautious about messing with the mojo.
Which is why he went crazy when he saw a normal, run-of-the-mill lineup card hanging in the White Sox clubhouse last Sunday morning.
Three days earlier, as a gag before the opener of a four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles, Bevington had filled out a fake lineup card with nicknames for everyone on the team.
Some of the nicknames were mildly obscene. Most were embarrassingly accurate. They all drew chuckles.
And the Sox kept chuckling on the field, scoring 10 times in the first three innings of a 12-5 laugher over the Orioles.
The next two games, with a mundane lineup card hanging in the clubhouse, the Sox died. They were outscored 20-6 and were clinging to a one-game lead in the American League West with one game to play before the All-Star break.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw the lineup,” said LaValliere, who spent the last six years with the Pittsburgh Pirates before joining the Sox last month.
“We won with the nicknames up there. Why would anyone change it? Jeez. Isn’t anybody on this team superstitious?”
The answer is: yes. Knock on wood, yes. The Sox are a superstitious lot.
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Remember, this is the team that banned its broadcasters from even mentioning the fact that a black cat sprinted across the field in a game earlier this year.
It was hardly surprising, then, that the Sox turned things around and mauled the Orioles 11-5 after LaValliere got the lineup cards straightened out.
But don’t read too much into that. Lineup cards didn’t do it all.
LaValliere also helped by putting his left sock on first, stepping into the left side of his pants first and tying his left shoe first.
When he’s playing, which he wasn’t Sunday, LaValliere uses his feet to rub out the lines at the back of the batter’s box before the first pitch.
“It’s part superstition and part habit,” said LaValliere. “Besides, sometimes the ball hits the chalk and sprays it up in your face. That stuff tastes pretty bad.”
Second baseman Joey Cora has one of the most elaborate good-luck rituals. Watch him before every inning.
Cora sprints from the dugout across the foul line, carefully avoiding the chalk as do many superstitious players. He heads across the grass to the front of second base, makes a 90-degree turn, runs through the infield dirt, touches the bag, keeps going to the outfield grass and then does a graceful pirouette.
“I just started doing it in 1989 in Las Vegas and I haven’t missed it once since then,” said Cora, grinning and shrugging. “It gets me in the right mood. I haven’t missed, but I guarantee if I don’t do it, I wouldn’t feel comfortable out there. I would be in trouble.”
Cora also listens to the same song before every game. When the Sox are home, he listens to it in his car. On the road, he has a portable CD player.
“It started in Baltimore last year,” said Cora. “It was a song Frank Thomas gave me and I listen to it every day.”
Cora refused to name that tune, but offered a clue: “It’s six minutes and 21 seconds long.”
Shortstop Ozzie Guillen is widely considered one of the most superstitious players in the Sox clubhouse.
“He’s weird,” said relief pitcher Scott Radinsky, who, in addition to being Guillen’s brother-in-law, knows a little about weirdness himself.
“Ozzie sits back there with these beads and stuff. He’s crazy. It’s like that guy Cerrano in the movie.”
That would be Pedro Cerrano, the voodoo-worshipping character in the movie “Major League,” who, like Guillen, wore the usually taboo No. 13 on his uniform and could be seen with beads in his locker.
“That’s not superstition. That’s my religion. I’m San Teria,” said Guillen, referring to a cult that originated in Cuba and blends elements of Roman Catholicism and African tradition. “Really. I’m praying.”
A native of Venezuela, a country that is 92 percent Roman Catholic, Guillen makes the sign of the cross before every trip to the plate.
He also has started smoking cigars before every game and has a series of on-the-field regimens.
In the first inning of every game, Guillen is last, or among the last, to leave the dugout. When he comes out, he heads to the back of the infield between third base and shortstop, grabs a fist full of dirt and throws it over his shoulder.
“I’ve been doing that for years. I don’t even know when it started,” he says.
Guillen also tries to start his pregame stretching at precisely 17 minutes or 47 minutes after the hour. And he has a set routine when he approaches the batter’s box.
“I always clean the plate with my right shoe, make sure I touch the plate with my bat and kick the dirt with the toe of my shoe,” he said.
Pitchers can be the most idiosyncratic of all players. Kirk McCaskill and Seattle pitcher Randy Johnson, for example, both believe in eating pancakes on days they pitch.
Sox rookie Jeff Schwarz never picks up a baseball unless it’s on the dirt when he enters a game.
“If it’s on the grass, I’ll use my glove to push it up on the dirt and then pick it up,” said Schwarz.
Many players were reluctant to discuss their good-luck charms.
“I’ve got a few things I do,” says pitcher Alex Fernandez with a grin. “But I’m not saying what they are.”
Third baseman Robin Ventura said he feels pretty much the same.
“I don’t really have any superstitions,” said the man who can be seen raising his black socks whenever he goes into a hitting slump. “The thing about superstitions is they don’t work anymore if you talk about them.”
Sox manager Gene Lamont readily admitted to a chain of superstitions, including changing the route he takes to the ballpark if his team is struggling.
Lamont and his coaches take turns bringing the lineup card to home plate and only rotate the job when the Sox lose a series.
The lineup cards figure in another superstition of Lamont’s. They come on triple-carbon pads and the third copy is often hard to read.
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Sometimes Lamont writes the lineup over again on the third copy. But if he does it that way and the Sox lose, he will leave the third copy blank and memorize the lineup.
Another of Lamont’s quirks turned out to be hazardous to his health.
“I remember when I was managing in the minors at Jacksonville, my pitching coach, Rich Dubee, and I stopped at Wendy’s one day for one of those Frosty malt things,” said Lamont.
“We went on a winning streak and we started going in there every day. Finally, we had to stop. We were getting too fat.”
Not surprisingly, the biggest Mr. Mojo on the Sox this year is probably Schwarz, who spent 11 years in the minors and isn’t about to do anything to jeopardize his career in the bigs.
“I tell you what: I’m never eating Domino’s Pizza again as long as I live,” said Schwarz. “For 11 years in the minors, I ate Domino’s Pizza and I just stayed down there.
“I switched to Pizza Hut this year and here I am in the majors. You’re never going to see me eating Domino’s again. I’m a Pizza Hut man.”
Knock on wood, Mr. Mojo