I was six years old when my dad taught me two very important life lessons: first, to root for the St. Louis Cardinals. Second, in his words, “You don’t mess with the mojo.”
Once, many years ago, my family was gathered around the TV to watch an afternoon game. Sunlight streamed through the windows to light up the room, yet a lamp in the back corner remained on. When someone — and I’m not pointing fingers here, so if you’re related to me you can just back off, thank you very much — moved to turn it off, my dad all but dove to defend the unsuspecting piece of furniture. If the Cards are up and the lamp is on, the lamp stays on.
A psychology professor of mine once explained superstitious sports fans as an example of an illogical application of operant conditioning. Because a certain condition or behavior was present at the time of a positive reinforcement, we replicate the same condition in an attempt to achieve the same outcome. How silly, she said. Lucky socks don’t win ballgames!
I know that the players in a ballpark 800 miles away probably don’t know or care whether a lamp is on, but I do know that the Cardinals won that game. Now, 15 years later and approaching the most important moment of the Cardinals’ 2013 season, I am older, at least marginally wiser and probably more superstitious than ever.
The postseason is one-ninth the length of the regular season, but it is at least 17 times more exhausting. Of course I follow the team’s ups and downs through the entire season, and they can absolutely drive me crazy — Mitchell Boggs, anyone? However, the regular season looks like a walk in the park when October rolls around. Every game becomes The End of the World, and keeping the mojo gains a whole new meaning.
September 2006, I entered high school relatively inconspicuously. One month later, I had cemented my identity as the Crazy Baseball Girl to my fellow freshmen as I managed to wear Cards gear every single day of the playoffs. When you’re a 14-year-old girl navigating a new landscape of cliques and popularity wars, wearing jerseys to school every day might make you a little weird, but hey, St. Louis won it all that year. Totally worth it.
For anyone who was wondering, mojo maintenance can change. In 2011, I didn’t wear any St. Louis clothing on the last day of the regular season, yet the Cardinals clinched the National League Wild Card after an improbable comeback from 10 games behind. So, obviously, I didn’t wear any Cardinals gear for the entirety of the playoffs! My sweatshirt choices were severely limited, but when St. Louis defeated the Rangers in Game 7, I happily marched out into the snow on Halloween night wearing a Cardinals hat. My costume? World Series champion, of course.
Then, sometimes, trying not to jinx the team can reach the point where I can’t even allow myself to watch the game. Cut to 2012 NLDS, game 5 — if you’re a Nats fan, you might want to stop reading. I was driving to an ultimate Frisbee tournament when the Nationals went up 6-0 in the first inning, but by the time I arrived at the hotel and had a TV at my disposal, the Cards had begun a comeback. There was no way in hell I was going to turn that TV on — I was too afraid to even pull up the Gamecast online. So instead, I refreshed the St. Louis homepage approximately every 45 seconds until that glorious “Final” appeared over the score and the Cards had advanced to the NLCS.
Like in 2012, I couldn’t watch half of the final game in the 2013 NLDS. It seemed like every time I pulled the game up online, the Pirates put a runner on base, so I went into distraction-baking mode, and only watched the bottom of each inning. I ended up with a delicious pumpkin cake and a win — success!
Once again, the Cardinals are alive in October, and the entire Mitchell clan — I promise it’s not just me — is as crazy as ever. My dad won’t watch the Cardinals in the field and my mom has a designated playoffs sweatshirt. Casey paints her nails red, Chris sits in the same spot on the couch, and the blackboard in Julie’s apartment must have a declaration of her dog’s baseball allegiance. Jessie, my twin, wears the same hat every day, save for Game 2 of the NLCS. My family went to a wedding that night and she was forced to wear a Cardinals bracelet instead, but when the ceremony was over and we all pulled our iPhones out, we saw the results: Cardinals 1, Dodgers 0.
Okay, superstitions might be just a little silly, and my roommates — neither of them sports fans — definitely think I’m crazy. And yes, the fate of my dear Redbirds — which is currently hanging on a thread and consequently causing me a minor heart attack every three hours or so — is in their own hands. But I still believe in mojo, and you can bet that tomorrow night I will be doing whatever insane thing I can think of to will the Cardinals to victory. The lamps are staying on, y’all.
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