Most Popular Sport Superstitions & Rituals

For many, sport and superstition often go hand-in-hand. After all, some of the elite level performers across a multitude of disciplines have held famous superstitions throughout the years, ranging from the quaint and humorous to the downright bizarre. These include Michael Jordan and Larry Walker, but we’ll touch on some of them a little later in this piece!

There are also universally renowned sport superstitions that may vary from one discipline to another. These apply to the most widely wagered on sports covered by the best sports betting sites in the US, including basketball, baseball, American football, soccer, golf and tennis.

• What are the Most Common Sports and Game Day Superstitions?
• Famous Athlete Superstitions and Their Origins
• Larry Walker and the Number Three
• Steve Kline – The Case of the Dirty Hat
• Caron Butler and his Unhealthy Obsession with Mountain Dew
• Ed Belfour – Don’t Touch My Equipment or Else
• Serena Williams – Happy to Change Ends, But Not Socks

What are the Most Common Sports and Game Day Superstitions?

Let’s start by appraising the most common sports superstitions in North America’s best loved disciplines and competitions. These include:

Baseball

Athlete superstitions are perhaps most observed in baseball, where players may engage in a number of behaviors before, during and after individual games. For example, many players are known to spit onto their dominant hand before they pick up a bat, with this believed to bring good luck and fortune.

Occasionally, you may also see baseball players step on at least one of the bases before they run off the field at the end of an innings. It’s also considered bad luck to touch the baselines while running off and into the field between innings, and players will often studiously avoid this even in the heat of battle.

Lending a bat or equipment is another action that may be considered a significant jinx. This superstition is mirrored across other high-profile sports too, with elite stars and professionals known to be incredibly protective over the equipment that they use during each game day.

Basketball

One of the most interesting athlete superstitions in basketball is that the last person to shoot a basket during a pre-match warm-up will go on to enjoy a good game. Similarly, you may also see players bounce the ball at least once before taking a foul shot, with this known to bring good luck and create some rhythm prior to attempting the basket.

Have you ever seen a basketball player wipe the soles of his sneakers before or during a game? This is also considered to be a portent of good luck among some players, while it’s almost as common a sight as seeing performers cross themselves when they first step out onto the court.

American Football

American football is also characterized by a number of different superstitions. For example, players often become wedded to specific shirt numbers during their careers and are loathe to take on a new number when they’re traded to a new team or franchise. There’s little logic to this, of course, but players believe that keeping the same number will bring them good luck.

Interestingly, it’s also argued that the presence of double numbers on a player’s back brings good luck. You’ll see that mascots play a significant role in American football too, with these characters considered to be a symbol of good luck and fortune. Often, a franchises mascot will appear at every home game, and may even interact with the players and spectators prior to kick-off.

Ice Hockey

Just as baseball players are protective over their equipment, the very same superstition is commonplace in hockey. For example, players rarely borrow each other’s their equipment and may not even like their stick or kit to be touched prior to a game. This may be key to several sports rituals and superstitions that dominate ice hockey and similar disciplines.

Similarly, it’s widely considered bad luck for hockey sticks to lie crossed at any time during training or competitive match days. Players are widely discouraged from shouting “shut out” in the locker room prior to the beginning of a match, with this thought to jinx their team’s goal!

In ice hockey, players often determine that they need to put on their pads, kit and skates in the exact same order prior to every single game. Some competitors may also believe that they’re more likely to win a particular game if they tap their goalie on his shin during the warm-up, despite this not being rooted in logic at all.

Famous Athlete Superstitions and Their Origins

From game day superstitions to those impact on every area of a player’s life, these generic examples often take on a life of their own and may be interpreted differently by each individual. Below, we’ll explore the most famous sports superstitions and the individual players who practiced them.

Larry Walker and the Number Three

Larry Walker is undoubtedly one of the best MLB players of the 1990s, alongside fellow stars Ken Griffey, Jr. and Barry Bonds. He was elected to five all-star games, for example, while he earned the National League MVP accolade in 1997. This year saw him become the only player in Major League history to record both a .700 slugging percentage and 30 stolen bases during the same season.

While Walker’s success is built on his striking ability, he also believes that it has much to do with the number three. This is why he wore the number 33 for the entirety of his career, while he even asked telephone companies to include as many ‘threes’ as possible when he was given a new number. Incredibly, he would only wake up at 33 minutes past the hour too, highlighting his commitment to his superstition.

What’s more, his first marriage took place on November 3rd at 3.33pm, so there’s little doubt that Walker believed that the number three was key to his chances of success in all areas of his life. This is an example of a something that extends far beyond a game day superstition, although it’s unclear precisely how healthy this is!

Steve Kline – The Case of the Dirty Hat

Steve Kline is another MLB veteran and star of the late 1990s, and one who represented five franchises (Cleveland Indians, Montreal Expos, St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles and the San Francisco Giants). He was a left-handed specialist reliever and pitcher, while he ended his career tied 11th all-time among this demographic with an impressive 796 appearances.

Despite this, Kline is best-known for his filthy and sweat-stained hats, which he refused to wash during any given season. One of the more unhygienic and questionable sport superstitions, this became the talk of the terraces during the height of Kline’s career, while his dingy hat would generate column inches in media reports too!

His hats became so well-known and widely discussed that the St. Louis Cardinals (for whom Kline played between 2001 and 2004) once held a ’Steve Kline Hat Day’. This saw the first 5,000 fans to enter the park receive their very own dirty hat, which depending on your perspective, is either the best or most revolting present imaginable!

Caron Butler and his Unhealthy Obsession with Mountain Dew

When it comes to physically unhealthy sports superstitions, it’s hard to look beyond Caron Butler’s obsession with Mountain Dew. The former UConn, Miami Heat and LA Lakers star is a 2x NBA All-Star and was named in the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 2003, while he won the NBA Championship in 2011 when representing the Los Angeles Clippers.

During his UConn days, however, Butler developed one of the more questionable NBA game day superstitions. More specifically, his wife would head to the local store and purchase a 2-liter bottle of the green, tooth decaying soda, with Buttler downing exactly half of this prior to the tip-off.

He’d also sink the second liter at half-time, providing an undoubted sugar rush ahead of the final two quarters. Incredibly, he kept this particular superstition alive during his early years as a pro, before the Washington Wizards and the NBA Players Association officially prohibited him from drinking the beverage in 2007.

He quit altogether in 2009. However, Butler’s penchant for unhealthy sports superstition examples soon resurfaces, as he took to chewing on so-called “fast food straws” during matches. Although there was no external pressure to stop this, he chose to quit this habit before the end of his playing career too.

Ed Belfour – Don’t Touch My Equipment or Else

Across most applicable sports, goalkeepers are renowned for being both individualistic and highly eccentric. Ice hockey’s Ed Belfour is no exception to this rule, although he also enjoyed a stellar career that saw him make an astonishing 963 appearances and was picked in the NHL First All-Star Team in both 1991 and 1993.

Belfour was particularly possessive over his goalkeeping equipment, to the point where he was known to threaten physical violence whenever teammates came near. On more than once occasion, he was heard to issue the pre-emptive threat “if you touch my stuff, I’ll kill you,” and this was to those who competed alongside him in the NHL!

Of course, we doubt Belfour would have gone so far had someone actually interfered with his goalie equipment. However, this remains one of the more common sport superstitions, but we can only imagine how Belfour would have reacted if an opposing player had sought to interfere with his possessions! The mind boggles.

Serena Williams – Happy to Change Ends, But Not Socks

Serena Williams remains the one of the most decorated female tennis of all-time, having won 23 Grand Slams during her stellar career. This haul included seven Australian Open and Wimbledon titles, while she also prevailed three times at the French Open and six times at Flushing Meadows. She impressively won three majors in 2015 alone.

Of course, tennis is a game that relies heavily on footwork, and Serena’s powerful movement and striking bear this out. Despite this, she was known for wearing the same pair of socks and not changing them for the duration of any given tournament, with this thought to bring her luck and good fortune.

For most people, wearing the same pair of socks more than once without washing them feels relatively unpleasant. So, we can only imagine how uncomfortable it would be to wear the same pair for around two weeks while engaging in intense physical exercise on a daily basis. However, such logic and normal customs mean little when confronted with sport superstitions, especially as players look for any kind of competitive edge over their opponents.

The Last Word

These are some of the best and most famous sports superstitions examples, but we could have picked hundreds more to include in this post. Think of the legendary Michael Jordan wearing his powder blue North Carolina shorts under his Bull skivvies, or Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher religiously chowing down on two chocolate chip cookies prior to every game.

What these examples demonstrate is that even the most skilled and elite sportspeople share strange and enduring superstitions, some of which extend to different areas of their life. While these may not be logical and can often seem counterproductive, they equip athletes with greater belief in themselves and a unique mental edge!