Standing among a crowd of blue and white in downtown Toronto Wednesday evening, Maureen Whitehead is kept warm by her George Springer jersey. But as first pitch approached on the night’s match between the Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers, superstition said it would have to come off.
“This jersey I can wear before the game and after the game, but I cannot wear during the game,” she said. “Every time I wore it (during a game), they lost, so I said, ‘OK, done with that.’ But I love the jersey, so I want to wear it before and after.”
Another superstition for Whitehead includes a fifth-inning change of scenery, where she’ll go upstairs to a spare bedroom. Her husband, Terry, is not allowed in that room for the rest of the game. He says his wife will also banish him to another room in the house if he walks in while the Jays are winning.
That custom would be a little bit harder to observe on Wednesday for the couple, who took the GO Train in from Oakville, Ont., to be among thousands of fans in the stands at Rogers Centre for a screening of Game 5 of the World Series.
It’s been a roller-coaster week for the Blue Jays fandom, with the team starting off with a heartbreaking 6-5 loss in an 18-inning game on Monday night, only to come back the next day with a 6-2 win against the defending World Series champion Dodgers.
The Jays were victorious for the second night in a row at Dodger Stadium with a 6-1 win on Wednesday night in a game that saw Trey Yesavage set a record for the most strikeouts as a rookie pitcher. They’ll return home for Friday’s Game 6, which could be the culmination of the Fall Classic.
For many, it feels like there’s a lot on the line, as the Jays hadn’t been to the World Series since 1993, when they won the second of back-to-back championships. With such high stakes, it’s only normal that fans would cling to their superstitions, says University of Toronto psychology professor Steve Joordens.
Superstitions are common for people in situations where they have little control over an outcome they care deeply about. The superstition offers “the illusion of control” that certain rituals can affect how that situation plays out, Joordens said.
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“All of these fans, they’re anxious. The bigger the fan they are, the more anxiety they feel as they’re going through the game. These rituals are a way of managing that anxiety, managing that stress by inducing some feeling of control,” he said.
For Joordens, it makes sense that baseball attracts fans who can be famously superstitious, given the number of rituals embedded in the game itself. The batter comes up to home plate, coaches and players communicate via hand signals, and stadiums play the same songs between innings to keep fans engaged.
“The whole ball game is almost like a ritual that all the fans are involved in. And when they do that together, that creates that sort of team bonding and the feeling of community,” he said. “It’s not that different from a religious experience where we’ll have this dance back and forth.”
Joordens adds there’s something called “confirmation bias” that creates superstitions for people and keeps them buying into them.
“Basically, what confirmation bias says is when we do something ritualistic that should have no impact, but it’s followed by something positive, we’re very quick about saying ‘Ah, see that worked,’” he said.
Some of the biggest superstitions include wearing — or not wearing — certain articles of clothing, whether that be a jersey, T-shirt or even socks or underwear. Joordens says it’s also common for some fans to feel compelled to leave the room in order for their team to score any runs.
For some fans, a positive omen can be a lot more literal. Jana Genge, who attended the game with her family after driving in from Guelph, Ont., said she’s seen blue jays in her backyard several days this week and has taken that as a positive sign.
“I really believe in that,” she said after the game, adding she’ll also wear a lucky shirt when there’s a game.
Though it’s all magical thinking and fans aren’t actually taking control over the games, the commitment to superstition can sometimes have a positive effect on a team, Joordens said.
“From the team’s point of view, when they see all of these fans doing all of these crazy things because of how much they care about how things turn out … that can actually impact what happens,” he said.
“It’s not really the metaphysical power of prayer, it’s the psychological power of prayer … that is playing out when we do all of these rituals. It is our way of showing the team we’re plugged in, we’re engaged, we care, we’ve got a lot on the line.”
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