The Baseball Gods

Never say there’s no such thing as the baseball gods.

I did my best not to jinx the Dodgers in the last post I wrote about them, and look at what’s happened. True, Kiké Hernandez did hit a home run during one of the two losses to the Angels last week…but, only a few days after I wrote that Corey Seager was coming back into his own, he pulled up lame running to 3^rd. Turns out he strained a hamstring trying to score from 2^nd.

I realize I’m not all-powerful and that one post on hunterblocksblog.wordpress.com isn’t going to sabotage a baseball player’s season…but I wasn’t the only one tempting the baseball gods about Seager. Everyone was excited that he was finding his form again. He’d gotten on base every time he was at bat during the game he got injured. It was the press and all the other Dodgers bloggers were pressing their luck along with me. (Come to think of it, I reckon it was Seager’s luck we were pressing, not our own.)

The baseball gods are an ornery bunch. Maybe they’re not polecat caught in a bear trap ornery, but, if you get too happy or too confident about something…watch out.

I understand that hockey players are the most superstitious of athletes, but I know some baseball players who aren’t far behind. I was never super superstitious, but I was careful about some things. Not like not washing my socks or anything dumbass like that (first of all, that’s totally gross), but I kept chewing the same piece of bubble gum if a game was going well, and spit my gum out (well…I put it in the trash…remember Dad’s rule) and started a fresh piece if things weren’t going well. And ever since little league I’ve been putting my uniform in the same order: jock, pants, jersey, belt, right sock, left sock, right shoe, left shoe. I reckon there’s nothing too crazy about that, since it’s a pretty logical order, but I get dressed that way before every game. I still get dressed that way for Parrots games. And I have “lucky” sunglasses that I wear only for games. They were a present from Dad; Oakley makes a special tint just for infielders.

That doesn’t sound so crazyass…but y’all haven’t seen me when I can’t find them. I reckon I’m a pretty easygoing dude. That’s until I’ve misplaced my sunglasses or my keys. A polecat caught in a bear trap ain’t got nothing on me when that happens.

And I tried never to say anything that would tempt the baseball gods to fuck things up for my team. If somebody said “going good tonight” or something, I wouldn’t answer…even if we were ahead 12 to 0 in the 8^th.

I know…I know…it’s all sillyass and I should know better. You’re only imagining that this shit makes a difference. If you strike out at a critically important AB, you can blame it on putting on your left shoe first or spitting out the lucky piece of bubble gum if you want…but that’s ignoring the number of ABs where you got a hit even though you did the bubble gum thing wrong.

At least that’s what Meemaw always says.

There’s a little good news about the Seager injury. It’s not as bad as they thought it might be, even if he’s going to be out for 4 to 6 weeks. Let’s hope that it’s closer to 4. The other good news is that he didn’t reinjure one of the places where he had his surgeries. Anyone can sprain a hamstring. I even did it to myself, also trying to score from 2^nd after standing around at 2^nd for a long time. That was in a high school game, and you heal real fast when you’re that young, but it’s not the worst injury that can happen to a ball player.

It still sucks that he’s going to be out for a month…especially after how well he’s been playing lately.

At least we know the team can continue functioning without him. They won a whole lot of games when he was in his slump, meaning that there are a bunch of guys who can take up plenty of the slack. Guys like Bellinger, Turner and Muncy. And, lately, Freese too.

Just think how even better we’ll be once Seager’s back.