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Baseball Magic
GEORGE GMELCH
Summary This updated selection by George Gmelch shows how Americans use magical ritual to reduce the anxiety associated with uncertainty. Gmelch focuses on baseball players but cites the work of Bronislaw Malinowski on magic in the Trobriand Islands, where islanders use magic when braving dangerous marine trips. In both cases, so different at first glance, magic is used to reduce anxiety and increase a sense of control.
Ritual in baseball involves those prescribed behaviors in which there is no connection between the behavior (e.g., tapping home plate three times) and the desired end (e.g., getting a base hit). Gmelch describes how ritual surrounds two of the three main activities associated with the gamehitting and pitching. This is because both involve great uncertainty. Fielding, the other main activity, is relatively error-free and therefore receives little magical attention.
Baseball players display most varieties of magic. They use personal magic, such as a regular cap adjustment before each pitch. Fetishes are also used; these are charmsusually small objects believed to embody supernatural power (luck) that can aid or protect the owner. Baseball fetishes are sometimes lucky pennies. Magic practices also include special diets, special clothing, and a host of other devices they feel are associated with successful play. They also observe taboos (things that should not be done, and that can bring bad luck), including one against crossing bats.
At the root of such behavior is this notion: people associate things with each other that have no functional relationship. If a pitcher eats pancakes for breakfast and wins a game that day, he may continue to eat them each time he plays because the act is now associated with success on the field. Citing research on rats and pigeons, Gmelch notes that once an association is established, it only takes sporadic success to perpetuate the relationship. Gmelch concludes that although baseball players do not attribute their acts to any special, supernatural power, they nonetheless follow ritual practices carefully to influence luck and guard against failure.
According to Gmelch in "Baseball Magic," baseball players often include personal rituals, taboos, and fetishes in their practice of magic.

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