Line-avoidance, mustache preservation, and the number 23: what superstitions exist in the Rangers cl

June 23, 2024

I had to step on each surface the same number of times with each foot.

That’s it. That’s my superstition. I don’t know how I happened upon it, but that was it. When I was touring, I admitted it one night in a fit of honesty, and the headlining act thought it was so strange. I had gotten so good at it that I could walk through a city and no one would notice I was doing it unless they watched for it. After I admitted it, they would notice, and make a point to yell at me when they caught me. When I met the girl that would be my wife, that same artist asked me if I did “that odd steps thing” when we were together. I realized that I did not. When I was with her, I didn’t need any other luck.

But they don’t allow wives or girlfriends on the playing field in baseball. And superstitions are more a part of this sport than any other. Where else would you find a Hall of Fame third baseman who ate chicken before every game? Superstitions are as much a part of the fabric of the game as cracker jack and three strikes, they just haven’t had a song dedicated to them yet.

But we live in an age of science, don’t we? Between Statcast and futuristic training programs, surely no current Texas Rangers have superstitions, right?

Wrong.

But I did discover this: part of the superstition might be in refusing to admit that you have any superstitions.

“Nothing out of the usual,” Tony Barnette said. He was sitting at his locker, furrowing his brow, trying to decide how much he wanted to admit. “Like running up, there’s always the traditional, like…” he paused, thinking better of it. If you tell anyone your wish, it won’t come true, remember? “…No? No. I don’t think I ever have. Not recently, no. He…” He paused again. Nothing good could come from admitting anything. “Yeah, no. Yeah, even when I was in my starting days, I don’t remember having to do one certain thing.”

“I shower at the same time every day, get my arm stretched at the same time every day,” Jake Diekman shrugged. “That’s basically it, pretty easy.” Wait, even in day games? “Compared to when the game starts,” he clarified.

Jose Leclerc was similarly tight-lipped. “No, I just try every day to do the big work, that’s it, but I don’t have any superstitions,” he said.

Jesse Chavez and Mike Minor were sitting in front of their lockers, which are in close proximity to one another. I approached them and asked them both at the same time, seeing if I could glean anything from their interaction with one another.

“Superstition kind of left once we got word that it was routine and not a superstition,” Chavez said. “Once we got the hang of that… other than, like, stepping on the (foul) line or something like that.” He paused to consider the line-jumping. “That’s kind of not routine, because if you did it every day, you wouldn’t step on a crack when you’re walking on the sidewalk. I would say (baseball) is more routine-oriented than superstition.”

I refrained from admitting that I knew all too well what he was talking about.

“It’s the same thing, the line thing,” Minor piped in. “I never touch the line, but I think it’s more that I don’t want to mess the line up, either.”

He nodded for a second, then raised an eyebrow. “But if I have a bad outing, sometimes I’ll kick it.”

“Walk right over it!” Chavez chimed in.

“I mean, I took away the mustache, so you know I’m not superstitious,” Minor continued. “I was gonna shave it anyway, but once we lost, I was like ‘alright, I can take it off’.”

Far be it from me to quibble, but that sounds superstition-adjacent, at least.

With one tandem down, I approached Jurickson Profar and Carlos Tocci as they chatted near their lockers. “Do you have any superstitions?” I asked, forgetting to use the code word “routine”.

Profar shook his head slowly as he considered. “Mmmm…. no?” he grimaced, as if apologetic for not having an answer.

“Liar,” Tocci mumbled under his breath. Profar shot him a glance.

I asked Tocci if he had any. “No, no.”

“Liar!” Profar shot back.

“Rougie!” Tocci said, as if having an epiphany. “Yes, you need to ask Rougie,” Profar concurred. So I traipsed across the clubhouse to see what Rougned Odor had to say.

“Yeah. A lot,” Odor nodded. Finally, an honest answer. “But it depends. Let’s say yesterday I hit good? I remember everything I did the day before. I wake up, I brush my teeth, I go to the shower, I eat breakfast, I try to do the same that I did the day before. I remember what street, what route I came, everything. I’m very superstitious.”

What happens if you have a bad game?

“I change everything.”

I asked if he had any superstitions that weren’t performance-based. He admitted that he does. “I write something down in the dirt at second base every game before every first inning, and before I go hit, I do something in the dirt too. I do that no matter what.”

What do you write?

“I write a cross, and I pray.”

That was a satisfactory answer. I decided it was time to ask the older generation. Tom Grieve—who was not in the room when I asked Odor the question—gave a remarkably similar answer to Odor’s: “I don’t think I had any one superstition that I had all the time, but I think if you had, for instance, a good game, you might come to the park and do the same thing that day that you did the day before. Maybe eat the same thing, maybe skip batting practice if that’s what you did the day before.”

Rougned Odor’s old-school baseball player status: confirmed.

I asked Jeff Banister if he ever had any superstitions.

“Playing,” he deadpanned. (Banister had one career big-league at-bat, an infield single). But then he gave the best answer of the day.

“You know what, yes. Early on, yes,” he admitted. “Moreso after I had the collision at home plate and broke my neck, I swore up and down I would never wear #17 again, and #23 became kind of the bane… any pitcher that wore #23 seemed to be a challenge for me until I realized how stupid it was when I picked up the program from my dad’s funeral, and the 23rd Psalm was written on it. And I thought how big an idiot I had been for my whole career. And no longer was I ever superstitious again. I believe we make our own luck. Luck is a byproduct of skill and preparation.”

I agree. Skill, preparation, and stepping on each surface the same number of times with each foot unless you’re with the love of your life. Totally agree.

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