Evening Star Newspaper, July 20, 1930, Page 76

53 YHE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JULY 20, 1930. s Collins Explains Base Ball Superstitions Jim Bottomley won’t change his uni- form, nor have it washed while he’s in @ hitting streak. | BY JAMES W. BOOTH. HY do some base ball players al- ways pick up a hairpin when they see one lying about? Why do some players always spit in their hat when they see & cross-eyed man? Why do others jealously guard their glove between innings and refuse to allow any one - to touch it, and why do certain outfielders always touch second base on their way to the plate? Nine out of ten people, no doubt, would say because they are superstitious, and perhaps they are. It has been related that the ball player actually believes, for instance, that if he picks up a large hairpin the official scorer will credit him with a homerun before night- fall, and that if he doesn’t “spit in his hat” when he sees a cross-eyed man a losing streak will be the result. But Eddie Collins, famous second baseman of the famous Philadelphia Athletics of 1910- 1914 and later the stellar keystone sacker of the White Sox, who is now assisting Connie Mack in piloting the A’s, scoffs at the theory that ball players actually believe these things. Collins, by the way, has been credited with being one of the most superstitious players in ths national game. His habit of sticking a piece of chewing gum on the button of his cap when he entered the game has almost become & tradition., If the pitcher had two strikes on him, Eddie would jerk off the cap, yank the gum from the button, stick it in his mouth and chew violently, The story was that he believed he would get & hit by doing so. “The average man playing professional base ball today,” Collins told me recently, “is too well educated actually to believe you can make home runs by picking up hairpins or adopting any of the other numerous superstitions which bave come to be s0 much a part of the game. If he did think so I would be tempted to agree with that fellow in Chicago who recently peti- tioned the court to have all ball players ad- Judged insane. “NI:VER'I‘HEIISS. you find-that base ball players and all athletes, for that matter, have a great many eccentricities or sunersti- tions, if you care to call them that. Why? I'll tell you. Having them gives confidence. “The thing that makes an athlete a success is confidence—confidence in himself. You have to have ability, of course. But you also have to have confidence. Half the time the posses- sion of confidence and the lack of it is the difference between the big leagues and the minors. Take two ball players, for example. They are equal in fielding, hitting and base running. . Yet, one is playing in fast company and the other is with an International League, American Association or Pacific Coast League club, just a step away from the top, but still not quite up to the pinnacle. The answer is that one player, the fellow in the majors, has utmost confidence in his ability and the other chap isn’t quite so sure of himself. “I've seen many cases like that during the 25 years I've been in the majors, Young chaps 7 Athletics’ Former Second Baseman Debunks Old 1dea That Ball Players Believe in Hokum, and Tells Why Charms Give Them Confidence That Spells Success. Babe Ruth has a locker full of charms, fetishes, tokens sent to him by enthu- siastic fans. He doesn’t exactly believe in ’em, but he wouldn’t part with ’em. have come up from the minors, brilliant play- ers they were, too, back where they came from, but they just couldn’t click in the so-called fast company. The newness of their surround- ings, the crowds, the fact they were playing with men whose names were household words wherever base ball as discussed just seemed to take the starch out of them. Pretty soon they were back in the minors again. Not because they didn’t have the ability, but because they didn't have confidence in that ability. “Now for the eccentricities! I prefer to call them that instead of superstitions. There not much difference, of course, but still there is a slight difference. . The player who has formed the habit of touching first or second or third base on his way back to the bench does so not because he ¢hinks tnat simple ect will improve his batting or his fielding any, but for the strange reason, a reason which I suppose the psychologists will have to explain, that he feels all keyed up and active and on his toes after he has done so. And when you feel that way you are generally bubbling over with confidence and approach the plate with the determination to hit the ball as far as you can. “I'rs that way all through sport. You find athletes doing all sorts of eccentric things, acting as superstitious as any one could pos- sibly be, but it isn’t that they actually believe that what they do will affect their playing one way or the other. They’re too sensible for that, It's the psychological effect these numerous eccentridities have upon them that leads them to continue the practice. “The late George Stallings was one of the’ most sensible men base ball has produced, He was the personification of common sense and one of the last persons in the world you would credit with being superstitious. Nevertheless, a single scrap of paper tossed on the ground in front of the dugout meant all sorts of bad things to George. It upset him completely and his managerial skill seemed to fade. Psychol- ogy, of course, but the players on opposing teams always took advantage of it and used to tear up score cards and scatter them about just to get Stallings’ goat.” As Collins remarked, sport records are crammed full of accounts of the eccentric or superstitious actions of players. _ It is one of the habits of Joie Sewell of the Cleveland Indians, after his last crack at the bat during practice, to run to third and touch the base before any one else touches it. That little trip to third gives Jole the confidence to frown if any one touches the bag ahead of him, for Sewell is a college man and in college a student generally loses any belief in omens. But just the same, out in Cleveland one time Just before the start of a game between the Indians and the Athletics, Eddie Collins dashed out-of the Athletics’ dugout and touched the sack ahead of Jole and Joie didn’t get a hit during the afternoon. That belief in Juck is the reason why Jim Bottomley of the Cards wears the same uni- form every day when he is having a hitting streak, Of course, the uniform has nothing to do with whether he hits the ball or not, but his mental attitude does. And if the men- tal attitude isn’t just right, the confidence is - lacking. Unnmsocxm.whomhhpflmcplwned smack-up ball for the Browns and later for the Yankees, was one of numerous pitchers who never want any one to touch their glove during a game. Shocker was too wise a man to believe the actual touching would have any- thing to do with his pitching, one way or the other, but he bhelieved in luck. Therefore, he had utmost confidence in as long as his glove was unmolested. Once during a game between the Athletics and the Yankees, when he was pitching for the Yankees, Shocker left his glove lying by the third base coaching box when he came in to Joie Sewell likes to touch third before any one else has. Eddie Collins once ran out and touched it first. Joie was hitless. the bench at the end of the sixth inning. The Yanks were leading at the time, 3 to 1. Eddie Rommel of the Athletics spotted the glove and knowing Shocker’s eccentric regard for it, walked over and picked it up, examined it and then tossed it back on the turf. Shocker vire tually saw red. He became visibly unsettled. He blew up the next inning. Dazzy Vance of the Brooklyn Dodgers has the same idea as Shocker about his glove, but he never runs the chance of any one “pulling a Rommel” on him, for as soon as the third out is called he sticks his glove in his hip pocket. The complete list of objects and perform- ances that are supposed to bring luck—or instill confidence, as Eddie Collins explains it—in base ball is almost as long as the list of players themselves. Each individual seems to pride himself on having an original idea of his own. One shuns all bags as he comes in from the outfield; another always touches first, another first and second, while another shuns third on the way to the bench, as if it were a plague. One pitcher never shaves the day he is going to pitch. And there is a heavy batter who never changes his socks as long as he is on & hitting streak. anmhulm“mnofchsrmn. fetishes and tokens; fastened to the door is a wooden horseshoe a totem pole and other curious objects guaranteed by enthusiastic donors to bring luck. o “When a player gets an idea that a certain bat or locker or even street car or taxi he takes to the ball park is lucky, it is mighty difficult to get him to give them up or believe other- wise,” declared Eddie Collins “And why should they? As long as they believe in that luck they have plenty of confidence, and that’s what belps to win ball games, ¥ “When we went out to Chicago last Fall for the third game of the World Series there was a fan on the train with us who had a great fondness for canned pineapple. He insisted the players eat some the morning of the game, pre- dicting we’d win if we did. Well, we did, and we won. We had pineapple every morning the rest of the series.” It was Bing Miller’s double to the huge va- cant space between Kiki Cuyler and Hack Wil- son that broke up the fifth game of the series and won the championship for the Athletics, b;;lt.he fan probably thinks it was his pine- apple. Safety Progress. BAOK_ in 1924, the Portland Cement Assoe ciation decided to join in the safety activi- ties of the Joseph A. Holmes Safety Associa- tion which works in close conjunction “with the United States Bureau of Mines in pre- venting mine accidents and perfecting rescue work when accidents do happen. In that year, out of 105 plants, one re- ported the completion of a full year's work without a single lost-time accident. The fol- lowing yedr, two plants out of 118 made this record, and in 1926, two out of 124 made the same report. In 1927 the number of plants had increased to 136 and 10 reported a clear slate, only to bow before the record of 1928— 17 out of 136—and finally 1929, with 153 plants in operation, found 28 in operation for a full ‘year with no one sifficlently hurt to require any loss of time.