Let’s talk rally caps.
Baseball season is here … get out your rally caps. OK, they look dumb, but you can’t overlook anything that guarantees your team a win. Your team is down a couple of runs in the ninth. You need them to rally and their bats have been dead all game. How do you wake them up? A cheer? A dance? Banging a drum? Rally caps.
Fans at games will try anything to motivate their team. Are baseball fans and players superstitious? You bet they are. Do YOU have a “lucky” shirt, jersey, hat, couch or chair, or a special position to watch the game at home? I have a neighbor who is a great guy, but terrible luck, so good friend as he is, I rarely watch an “important’ game with him.
Do you have lucky food, drink or pregame tradition? Or a lucky TV set or room to watch the game? I once wrote a book about baseball superstitions and rituals and found that nearly all players have good luck rituals … from Wade Boggs’ eating chicken before every game, to Gregg Jeffries taking his bat out to lunch with him, to Luis Tiant’s rubbing his pitching arm with tobacco and rum before a game. During the 1953 season, the Yankees’ Phil Rizzuto, a very superstitious person, chewed the same gum during every game of the Bombers’ 18-game winning streak from May 27-June 14. After each game, he put the gum on the button of his cap and put it in his locker. He told me that his Yankee teammates would sneak up to his locker and put hot sauce, salt, liniment and other things on the gum, but he faithfully chewed it because his teammates told him it was good luck to chew it and bad luck if he didn’t. He was a GOOD teammate.
So what do fans try? Hitting a beach ball around the stadium, is out – so 1970s. The Wave is out – so 1980s. Dancing the Macarena is out – so 1990s. Singing “Cotton Eye Joe” is out – so 2000s.
Do you rub your “lucky charm”? Do you wave a “terrible towel?” Do you wiggle a “homer hanky”?
Do you hold your baseball cap upside down, hold it by the bill with the opening face up and jiggle it to beg for runs?
The most common ballpark rally ritual is the rally cap. Worn unconventionally, most often it is worn inside out and backwards, or folded and worn bill-up on half the fan’s head. Now that is a surefire way to make sure your team scores runs. Hmmm … if it works, why not wear it that way from the opening pitch?
The rally cap tradition may have started with the 1945 Detroit Tigers as some players wore their caps oddly as a way to urge their teammates on, and it culminated with a World Series championship for the Tigers (over the Cubs). That maneuver went on hiatus until the Texas Rangers resurrected it in 1977 and resulted in several come-from-behind victories. It vanished and entered fandom in 1985 when Shea Stadium fans started turning their caps inside-out to cheer on the Mets. This time, the players caught on later and used it to “help” the Mets win the 1986 World Series (over the Red Sox). Success breeds usage, and soon rally caps were seen throughout MLB stadiums.
Some believe the power of rally caps stems from the fan’s sacrifice of dignity for the sake of the team, and the only “rule” is, it must be a team cap … a cap without your team logo on it is a wasted ritual.
Variations on the theme include rally chew -- some blame Red Sox manager Terry Francona for changing from tobacco to gum, thus costing the BoSox the 2008 division title – second to Tampa Bay that season. However, the Tigers used rally gum to get to the World Series vs. the Cardinals in 2006. Tigers pitcher Nate Robertson added gum to his chaw until it was too big to chew, believing that the more gum was in his mouth, the better were the chances of the Tigers winning.
Then there have been rally monkey videos used by the Angels, rally squirrels by the Cardinals, Dodger Blue rally towels, terrible towels (NFL Steelers), homer hankies – introduced by the Minnesota Twins in 1987 and picked up elsewhere, and various items and rituals used and copied by fan bases nationwide.
The Angels’ rally monkey got them the 2002 World Series (over the Giants) but 50,000 fans can’t each bring a monkey with them into the park -- think of the mess -- unless the team is winning, in which case it is monkey-time in Anaheim.
So, go to a game and start your own tradition … as long as your team wins. If not, get rid of it quickly and try something else … fast. There are only 155 games left in the season.
What do you think? Let me know at mike.blake@mountvernonnews.com.
See you next time.
