Friday, April 11, 2008

Tribe Superstitions

After thinking about the Red Sox fan who buried a Red Sox t-shirt within the walls of Yankee Stadium to jinx the team, I started to wonder if Cleveland players or fans had any weird superstitions. Much to my surprise, mentalfloss.com had "The 10 Most Bizarre Athlete Superstitions" on March 8th. Also, numero uno was Kevin Rhomberg, who played for the Indians from 1982-1984. Check out how weird this guy was:




"Rhomberg played just 41 games in parts of three seasons with the Tribe from 1982-84. But in that short span, the outfielder managed to assert himself as possibly the big leagues’ most superstitious player ever. Rhomberg’s most peculiar superstition was that if someone touched him, he had to touch that person back. Although this compulsion was not as much of a liability as it might have been in basketball or football, it still led to some odd situations: if Rhomberg was tagged out while running the bases, he’d wait until the defense was clearing the field at inning’s end to chase down the player who’d touched him. Rhomberg also refused to make right turns while on the field, because baserunners are always turning left. So if a situation forced him to make a right turn, he’d go to his left and make a full circle to get moving in the correct direction."
How bizarre is that? Is he the first "functional" obsessive compulsive person to play in the major leagues? I wish I could see some of his stuff on YouTube. I wonder how many balls he missed because he had to turn in a circle to his right to get a ball to his left.
Do you guys have any game day superstitions?

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