Louis “Bobo” Newsome was baseball’s first “Mr. Superstitious.” He refused to tie his shoelaces but would stand majestically while someone tied them for him. He always took off his street socks in order, left sock first, then dropped them into his shoes. At the end of every inning he tossed his glove up in the air so it dropped just in front of him as he crossed the foul line: then he stopped and touched the foul line. “Bobo” once pitched a nine-inning no-hitter and lost the game.

Forrest “Spook” Jacobs always squirted a mysterious liquid on his bat before a game. When pressed for an explanation, Jacobs said he was applying Murine so he’d have a “seeing-eye” bat.

Courtesy Baseball Hall of Fame

Eight members of 1919 Chicago White Sox conspired to throw the World Series, and fate has frowned on the franchise's fortunes ever since.

But perhaps nobody matched “the Nervous Greek,” Lou Skizas: He wore six pairs of socks during games, “and before every game he had to rotate them bottom pair to the outside and so forth.” Skizas just had to step between the catcher and the umpire when getting into the batter’s box, and he always took a practice swing with his left arm, keeping his right hand in his back pocket (where he held his lucky Greek medal) until the instant before the ball was delivered.

Corbis

In 1918, Boston traded the game's greatest player ever, Babe Ruth, to the Yankees, thus invoking what Red Sox fans call the Curse of the Bambino.

Team efforts

As is true of any ritual, superstitions must be observed if they are to survive. Even as night games, television, and the designated hitter came to baseball, players—and sometimes whole teams—retained their superstitious ways.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant was known for his penchant for smoking cigars while in the postgame shower. His admirers never saw the strands of beads and the special loincloth that he wrapped around his waist, under his uniform, “to ward off evil.” Astros right-hander Joaquin Andujar knew how to break a losing streak on the mound: He showered with his uniform on to “wash the bad out of it.”