From the Chicago Tribune
Superstitious fans take no chances

By Rick Jervis

Tribune staff reporter

Violet Tantillo is pretty sure the Cubs would be headed for the World Series right now, if only she hadn't taken that shower.

Hitting the shower during the Cubs' loss to the Marlins last week meant she had to remove the radio headphones she uses to hear each game. Obviously, that disruption of her game-day ritual jinxed the team.

So if it weren't for Tantillo, the Cubs would have clinched the pennant Saturday with their 8-3 defeat of the Marlins.

"I shouldn't have taken that shower," said Tantillo, a principal at Jefferson Elementary School in Berwyn who always listens to the radio broadcast of Cubs games while watching it on TV. Always. "I feel terrible."

As the Cubs continue their push through the postseason, the good-luck rituals, charms and reverse-curses performed by fans are increasing in intensity.

Players have their own rituals to appease the baseball gods. Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa tosses a cup of coffee out of the dugout before each game, and reserve outfielder Doug Glanville deliberately steps on chalk foul lines while running to and from the dugout (as opposed to most players, who avoid them).

But Chicago fans also are doing their best to help nudge the stars into alignment. The rituals were humming all over town Friday and Saturday night.

At the Black Rock bar in Lakeview Friday night, as the game crept into extra innings, Tristan Hari rubbed his hands as if starting an imaginary fire every time a Cubs player came to the plate, a technique he said helps awaken their bats.

"This is my only superstition," said Hari, 32, a bartender in Chicago. "But it works."

With the Cubs on the edge of their first World Series berth in nearly six decades, the ceremonial intensity promises to increase. In Chicago, one of the more superstitious towns in arguably the most superstitious of sports, that means:

Loyola University law student Andrew Tarnoff, 27, and his four friends will make sure to sit in the same seats in their Wrigleyville apartment during all Cubs games.

Kevin Knepp, 35, a Realtor from Chicago, will wear a battered blue Cubs cap he keeps hidden in a bedroom closet and wears only when the Cubs reach the playoffs.

Tim Schultze, 26, of Homeland Park, to his fiance's dismay, will not cut his hair until the playoffs are over.

The Breitenreiter household in Lombard will keep the bathroom fan on during games, because the Cubs win when it is.

"It's a calming mechanism," said Gregg Steinberg, a sports psychology professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn. "Performance, particularly in baseball, is unpredictable. The superstition gives you a perceived sense of control over what's unpredictable. The more perceived control, the more calm you have, the less anxiety you have and the better you play."

Superstition has been hanging over the Cubs at least since 1945, when tavern owner Bill Sianis tried to watch a World Series game at Wrigley Field with his pet goat. He was kicked out of the park and promptly put a curse on the Cubs. They haven't returned to the Fall Classic since, though his relatives have lifted the curse many times.

Last week, restaurateur Spiro Papas, decked in traditional Greek garb, led a baby billy goat outside his Oak Park restaurant, broke a plate on the sidewalk, clanged a cowbell and declared the goat curse gone. Another man, deemed the goat's "godfather," kissed the goat three times on the mouth.

"I'm kind of upset about the whole situation with the billy goat," Papas said. "One hundred percent, I will give my life, the Cubs will win on the sixth game."

At the start of the season, Cubs manager Dusty Baker downplayed any hex or jinx hovering over his new team. But last month, before a crucial series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Baker was spotted sprinkling a sandlike substance around Wrigley's outfield. He never revealed what it was, and Cubs officials won't comment either. But the Cubs won four of five games from the Cardinals.

Richard Lustberg, a sports psychologist from New York, said he has counseled football athletes who won't change undergarments and basketball players who don't shower during streaks, but none are more superstitious than baseball players.

"Baseball players play 162 games; it becomes a game of numbers," Lustberg said. "A quarterback is not looking for 4.5 passes a game. He's just throwing. The numbers are more in front of baseball players. Makes them more superstitious."

That goes for fans as well. During a recent WGN-AM call-in show, one Cubs fan admitted to washing his hands every half-inning, another turns away each time Sosa hits and one woman claimed she has to clean her house during games.

"You're dealing with a ballclub that hasn't won a World Series in [95] years," said Spike O'Dell, the radio show's host. "If it takes voodoo dolls and magic spells, we're up for it."

Tribune staff reporter Jon Yates contributed to this report.