The Superstitious Rituals of Sport

I t’s that time again. Super Sunday. The Big Dance in Vegas. For many, it is the summit of sports. And, as with all sports, Us versus Them.

It’s important, and you care. Care in a way those closest to you may not understand. Care with a fervor that perhaps makes them shake their heads, leave the house, or both, when the game is on. That’s okay. Alone, you’re free to do what’s needed if your team is to do what it must — win! By any margin, by any means, at any cost. For, in the words of Field General Vincent T. Lombardi, winning’s not the important thing — it’s the only thing.

In the sanctuary of your cave, you will incline tomorrow toward the altar of the big screen, and commence the oblations. From sublime to ridiculous they run, though more often the latter.

Many will be familiar with the antics of the Puddy character in Seinfeld. A die-hard hockey fan, Puddy was wont to paint himself, head to naked trunk, the colors of his Jersey Devils, prompting the first exorcism ever attempted in traffic. Fewer know the beer-spewing moment a TV camera lingers upon a friend, or relative, on inglorious display, with feathers, horns, dogface, or fur; clad as pirate, or leprechaun, feisty in top-hat and tails. This behavior, though, is of a piece with what Charles C. W. Cooke explored in a recent episode of his eponymous podcast.

Per the show notes: “Charles confesses to his preposterous sports-related superstitions [and] reads aloud some of his correspondents’ weirdest game-day habits.” There are some doozies too. Charles leads by example, admitting: “If my feet are on the couch when the Yankees hit a home run, I’ll keep them on the couch. The ante’s upped a bit with this: If I get Chipotle for lunch, and the Gators lose, I won’t get Chipotle again during the college season.” A stream of listener confessions follows, including that of a fellow whose mother was putting laundry away in a closet when the 49ers began the comeback that culminated in The Catch. Cued by that flashing sign of causality, his father insisted she stay in the closet till the deal was sealed. The weirdness bar is further raised by someone able to watch his team play only in the reflection of a window.

Permutations abound, as I can confirm from the accounts of my own friends. Kevin, sports-savvy proprietor of the Ellis Restaurant in Vancouver, attests to the juju of staking a fixed position on the couch, as well as to the proven sorcery of adjusting his cap at crucial moments — in other words, the entire game. We can only feel for my man, Matt, co-host of the Mitts & Twigs hockey podcast, and Detroit Lions devotee. Before the start of a recent season, Matt bought a special bottle of bubbly to pop after the team’s first win. As the clock ran out on an 0–16 year, he retrieved the bottle, stepped onto the balcony, and purged the curse by pouring the contents over his head in a fizzy lavabo.

We may wince at such reports, perhaps relieved to hear we’re not as out there as some, or abashed to learn we’re further out than most. I  should, in good conscience, confess that my own cave antics could easily be set to the Looney Tunes theme. I’ve found, for example, that in order to give the New York Giants their best chance of winning, they need me to follow their play on ESPN’s GameCast, rather than on TV. Because, watching is guaranteed to sabotage them. Sometimes I wonder if the sports gods weren’t founding members of the Friars Club.

Charles is, of course, spot on calling all this superstition, as is the listener who refers to each exercise as a ritual. Moreover, says Charles, life isn’t usually like this, in that “you wind up caring about [sports] enormously, but you also have absolutely no control over the outcome,” which in one sense is true. But, to what degree does a game stand in for the pitched battle of life itself, and a team for ourselves in it? We do care, enormously. Some might say, inordinately. Why?

Let’s say our favorite is the local team. How many of its players are actually from said town? For that matter, how many of the fans are? How many of those players do we know personally, or are we ever likely to meet? Regardless, a win can lift us beyond all proportion, while a loss can feel like an existential gut punch, or worse. Indeed, with sports gambling now at sanctioned full throttle, worse could wind up looking like Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant, shooting out his car radio, as it tells him he’s lost everything betting on the Mets.

Perhaps there’s no good answer to the question Why? Rituals are strange things, but revelatory. There are myriad civic rituals, of course, as well as those at a remove from an increasing number of people. They are the rich and varied rituals of religious faith. Theologian Alexander Schmemann’s description of them is the most illuminating I know: “A ritual is the incarnation of a vision.”

What vision do our various rituals seek to make real? It starts with a W, I suppose, but surely doesn’t end there. Here, Schmemann’s insight offers a keen instrument for self-assessment.

Barring a truly compulsive dimension, though, the shenanigans of sports are generally harmless, and often hilarious. As sublimations of actual war, they render an enormous service. Something to keep in mind as the showdown between the ’Niners and Chiefs Taylor Swift-ly approaches. (Go, Giants!)