Below is my feature story from the April issue of Inside Pitch (the Rays team magazine/game program). It's a brief collection of short stories surrounding the night of September 28, 2011 and Game 162 from the perspective of Rays employees and fans.


(h/t to Erik Ruiz for the amazing layout and graphics)

162

Fortune Favors the Bald

On March 16 at Charlotte Sports Park, 37 Rays players and coaches and 34 front office members (including yours truly) shaved their heads as part of the "Cut for a Cure" event to raise money for the Pediatric Cancer Foundation.

The idea started when Tampa Bay Lightning captain Vinny Lecavalier asked Rays manager Joe Maddon to be a part of the "Cut for a Cure" campaign and shave his head. Joe decided to do it at Charlotte Sports Park to get more publicity for the Foundation, and next thing you knew--almost everyone in the Rays organization was going bald.

If anyone had any doubts about Maddon's ability to motivate--the guy managed to get 71 Rays, including the principal owner, president, general manager and several other VPs, to shave their heads. 

The Rays helped raise more than $5,000 for the Pediatric Cancer Foundation on head-shaving day and donations can still be made until May 4. To donate visitwww.pcfcutforacure.org or text "Cut" to 50555 to make a $10 donation.

Here are some of my favorite pictures I took from event:

Superstitions

Saddle up, partners. It’s time for another Hardball Mystery.

We’ve heard them all before: Don’t talk to a pitcher when he’s got a no-hitter going. Don’t step on the foul line. Grow a ‘70s mustache and wear a golden thong underneath your uniform to snap out of a slump.

(I’ll pause now and let you shutter in disgust at that mental image.)

Baseball is full of superstitions, ranging from the slightly ridiculous to the downright absurd. With most of our mysteries, we ask “why is that?” But with these superstitions, we already know the player’s non-sensical answer: “because it helps.”

So, instead of trying to figure out why baseball players perform these ludicrous routines, let’s just sit back and enjoy some of the more entertaining, player-specific superstitions that have graced the ball field over the years.


Frank Viola: During the 1987 season, Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Frank Viola noticed a large banner hanging in the Metrodome that read “Frankie Sweet Music Viola.” It just so happens that whenever that sign was up when Viola pitched, he never lost. That season, he went 15-0 with four no decisions (all Twins victories) in games with the banner. The creator of the banner, Mark Dornfield, introduced himself to Viola during the season, and the two got along quite well. When the Twins made the World Series, Viola found out that Dornfield did not have tickets, so Viola’s wife called the fan and offered him tickets to Games 1 and 7.

Viola won both games and was named World Series MVP.


Mike Hargrove: Before he became a manager, Mike Hargrove was known for his batter’s box quirks as a player. Before each at-bat, Hargrove would walk up the first base line and take three practice swings before stepping into the box. After each pitch, he would perform a painfully-long routine that involved re-strapping his batting gloves, fixing his pants and his sleeves, wiping his mouth, and pushing down the top of his batting helmet before stepping back in.

Because of this, Hargrove was dubbed “The Human Rain Delay.”

Roger Clemens: Forget the steroids, this guy has other problems. Besides wiping the Babe’s plaque in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium before starting a game, Roger also decided to name his children after his favorite baseball stat: the strikeout. I’m sure Koby, Kory, Kacy, and Kody are thrilled. (Editor’s Note: Together, they personify a “golden sombrero.”

But how about this for foreshadowing: Clemens struck out his 4,000th batter on the same day that he won his 300th game. What was the date? June 13, 2003. Friday the 13th. I think we can scientifically say that’s where everything started to go downhill.

Larry Walker: Former Expos/Rockies/Cardinals outfielder Larry Walker was known for being a five-tool player. But if it were up to him, he would probably rather be known as a three-tool player. That’s because Walker has a serious obsession with the number three. He sets his alarm for 33 minutes past the hour, takes practice swings in multiples of three, wears No. 33, was married on November 3 at 3:33 p.m., and bought tickets for 33 disadvantaged kids when he played in Montreal (to be seated in Section 333 at Olympic Stadium.)

"For some people, it might be a superstition," Walker told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel in 1997. "For me, it's an obsession."

Wade Boggs: Boggs always ate chicken before a game. He always took 150 grounders during infield drills. He always took batting practice at 5:17. He always drew the Hebrew word “chai” (meaning “life”) in the batter’s box with his bat before stepping up to the plate (even though he’s not Jewish). He always stepped on first, second, then third base before taking exactly two steps in the coach’s box then four steps to get to the dugout before a game.

Then there’s the legend that Boggs drank 64 beers on a cross-country flight while playing for the Red Sox…but that’s another blog entirely.

Turk Wendell: This guy trumps them all. The sheer volume of ridiculous eccentricities that Wendell had makes it impossible to detail them all. Here’s just a few of his more famous ones:

-Brushing his teeth between innings
-Chewing four pieces of black licorice while pitching
-Tipping his hat to the centerfielder and waiting for the centerfielder to tip his hat back to him before pitching (one of his college games was delayed almost 10 minutes because the center fielder forgot to tip his cap to Wendell)
-Wearing a necklace at all times that consisted of teeth from animals he had hunted
-Sprinted off the field between innings and leapt (or kangaroo hopped) over the foul line
-Standing while the catcher was squatting, and squatting while the catcher was standing

Congratulations, Turk Wendell. You win.

But if you ask me, when you believe in things that you don't understand and you suffer...superstition ain't the way.

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What are some of the wacky superstitions you’ve heard about or seen in your day? Click over to the “Comments” section and let us know.

At-Bat Music

The home team is down 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning. The mood is tense. With no outs and the bases loaded, the batter grounds into a double-play ball that doesn’t even score a run. Frustration looms. That’s when it hits.

“Brass monkey -- that funky monkey!”

As the Beastie Boys blast over the loud speaker at Greer Stadium, Chris Woodward steps to the plate and single-handedly changes the mood of the stadium.

“I get up to the plate, and I almost just start to laugh,” Woodward says.

In the press box during a recent home game, Woodward’s intro music started to play and a chorus line of singers chimed in with the "interesting" lyrics to the 1987 hit. That’s when Mark Photivihok, the Sounds human resources assistant, offered his suggestion for the next “Hardball Mystery:”

What exactly is a player thinking when selecting his at-bat music?

Woodward is past the days of pumping himself up with hard rock or rap music. For him, it’s pretty simple. “I’ve always been a Beastie Boys fan,” Woodward says. “It just keeps me loose.”

Believe it or not, Woodward is not the first to use “Brass Monkey” as his at-bat song. Third baseman David Wright rocked Mets fans at home games with the song before holding a fan poll to choose his at-bat music the next year.

For others though, deep thought and painstaking detail go into their selections. Take Tony Gwynn, Jr. for instance, who routinely changes his music on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

“I choose my music because of the kind of mood it puts me in when I step out there,” Gwynn says. “I also try to look for stuff that’s representative of where I’m from in California.”

But while some players might switch their songs because of a slump, Gwynn would still change his music even if he was in the middle of a 55-game hitting streak.

“I’m not a superstitious guy,” Gwynn said. “For me, it’s all about staying current with the music.”

Then, there’s the relief pitcher. Many of baseball's most memorable intro songs come from the bullpen.

At one point, there was even an uproar over New York Mets closer Billy Wagner using “Enter Sandman” by Metallica as his intro when a famous closer for another New York team already used the haunting tune as his message to hitters in the ninth inning. Then, there’s Ricky Vaughn, who made being “Wild Thing” a good thing as the heat-throwing ace for the Cleveland Indians in the movie Major League.

But if you ask the players around the Sounds clubhouse, one man stands alone with the perfect theme music blasting behind him: San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, who makes his walk from the bullpen accompanied by AC/DC's "Hells Bells."

“Hoffman stands out because it just fits him perfectly,” Gwynn says. “With him coming in the game in the ninth, closing it out, it just fits. I feel like he’s got the perfect song.”

Sounds reliever Tim Dillard agrees with Gwynn about Hoffman but added another name to the mix. “When Chipper (Jones) was re-habbing a couple years ago in Double-A, he came out to 'Crazy Train,' and that was pretty cool,” Dillard says. “Now, if another hitter comes out to that song, it’s like, ‘who do you think you are, Chipper Jones?”

Dillard understands the importance of the song choice for a reliever, especially the subtleties of the song’s lyrics. “One time I heard this ‘80s song, “You Spin Me Round,” and I thought, oh, that music would be cool,” Dillard says. “But then you don’t want to be getting ready to pitch and hear 'you spin me right round, baby.'

"I mean, you can’t come in to 'We Will Rock You,' if you’re a pitcher, even though it may sound cool, because the lyrics are about getting rocked," Dillard explains. "Most pitchers don’t want to get rocked, so it doesn’t really work.”

For the most part, it seems that the music being able to pump a player up is the most important factor in the song-choice decision, with lyrics taking a backseat. But for me, I would pick a song with lyrics that particularly reflect what I’m feeling as I walk to the plate.

That’s why I would choose, “Why Can’t We Be Friends” by War (with the added bonus of the irony created by the band name and their hit song…just think about it for a second). Or “Open Arms” by Journey, so that I could completely baffle the opposing pitcher with Steve Perry’s yearning vocals.

Or if I was a reliever, I’d want to come out to the “Price is Right” theme music, with the PA announcer telling me to “come on down!” Man, that would be awesome.

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I know you’ve thought about it. You know you’ve thought about it. Here’s your chance to tell everybody what your at-bat music would be. It can be serious. It can be funny. It can be just plain weird. Just bring you’re A-game, because the winner gets a prize.

Head on over to the comment section (directly below this post) and give us your answer, and we’ll announce the winner in the next post.


“Jonathan Gantt, come on down! You’re the next pitcher for the ninth inning!” ("Price is Right" theme plays while strobe lights flash and Jonathan runs onto the field with a shocked look on his face, giving high fives to the outfielders and infielders as he finds his way to the mound)