FANSTITIONS– Convincing ourselves that we are actually having some sort of tangible effect on our teams playing abilities.

“I’m baaaaack”

So I know I’ve been MIA for a while (well on the blog, still active on twitter though @beersportsbabes). After battling being sick for the past month I haven’t had much motivation to sit down and actively write. BUT today after eating a few chocolate chip cookies I baked and my usual morning regimen of green tea, I feel game.

A lot has been going on in the sports world since my last post. In baseball Santana threw the first no-hitter in Mets history and in the Stanley cup finals, the Kings are a game away from winning their first championship. The Heat and Celtics (go BOSTON!) are battling it out, the Spurs 20 game win streak (longest winning streak carried over from the regular season into the playoffs) was snapped and now has turned into a 3 game losing streak with OKC showing no signs of letting up. What hasn’t been going on though is Drew Bree’s contract. We’ll get to that in another post.

Finals in any sport usually bring out a number of things in fans. Whether it be dusting off their teams memorabilia to show their support or digging in to their children’s college funds to pay for playoff tickets, fandemonium is usually kicked into high gear during these crucial times. Biggest thing that starts happening is the return of superstitions. We know that athletes themselves, more likely than not, have their own set of superstition. Whether it be the playoff beard, wearing the same unwashed uniforms, or praying to a paperweight scorpion (don’t judge me), it’s more than common.

The thing is though, that fans, yes us fans of the sports, tend to have extreme over the top superstitions – way worse than those athletes that actually have direct effect on the game.

Watching at home, we have to sit in our special, favorite chair, not wear our team’s snuggies (my friend blames the Packers losing to his snuggie I bought him – he’s a Spurs fan too, if they play Boston in the Finals I’m buying him one)—convinced despite ourselves that we are actually having some sort of tangible effect. Yours truly is no exception, certainly, refusing to watch an entire game and making sure that I don’t wear anything Celtics related that day (color or memorabilia)—and being fairly convinced that said not wearing green was absolutely crucial to Boston winning their games.

The question, though, is if I’m nuts. Seriously.

All these minuet ceremonies we perform to court the supernatural, are they just tricks on the brain? Skeptics would say that our constant quest for good luck is just comforting nonsense and that the brain is being hard-wired to seek patterns—find order and causality where none exists.

Maybe though, just maybe those skeptics are wrong.

So as the Heat and Celtics play today, I’m dressed in grey, refuse to speak to my father (sorry dad you’re bad luck), won’t watch the entire game, and will suppress my usual shit talking until the game is done.

With that said, what are your guys fanstitions?