Ozzie Guillen won't wash his clothes. Erik Hanson won't step on the white lines. Duane Ward won't play catch with anyone except Jim Acker.
Ballplayers, beware. It's Friday the 13th.Call them crazy, kooky or flat out weird. Whatever, when it comes to good-luck charms or home-style hexes, look out.
"A lot of people call them superstitions because they are very often stupid, but that's what they do," said Ward, a Toronto reliever. "It's kind of an unwritten rule that you don't mess with ballplayers' superstitions."
Like Tom Glavine's secret for success. Tied for the major league lead with 18 victories, he wouldn't dream of pitching without something special.
"I always stick a piece of sugarless Bazooka bubble gum in my back left pocket," the Atlanta ace said.
Seattle starter Hanson also is a believer.
"I think they say it's a sign of a weak mind, but I have to admit that I do have a few," he said. "I always step over the foul line with my right foot. And I always tighten the strings on the back of my glove before every inning."
Dave Stieb used to eat tuna fish on the days he pitched. And Scott Erickson, tied with Glavine for most victories, wears all black and only black as his turn to work draws near.
How a player dresses is important, particularly if he's on a hot streak or in a cold spell.
"If I get two or three hits in one game, then I don't wash my game clothes for the next game," said Guillen, the Chicago White Sox shortstop.
"During my 30-game hitting streak in 1989, I wore the same sweatbands," Jerome Walton of the Chicago Cubs said. "As soon as the streak broke, I threw them in the ash can."
Baltimore pitcher Dave Johnson can understand that, sort of.
"It used to be that I'd be superstitious with what shirt or shoes I wore more than the things I did on the field," he said. "Sometimes I'd wear different shoes or shirts to show that it had nothing to do with it. Just go against the grain to prove it's not true.
"Most ballplayers are superstitious, but don't want to admit it," he said.
Like Ryne Sandberg.
"I've got a routine, but it's a secret," the Cubs' star said.
There are major superstitions in the minors, too. Take Turk Wendell.
At 24, Wendell is one of the best pitching prospects in the Braves' system. He's also, well, a little off-beat.
Wendell will not catch a ball thrown to him by an umpire before a game. Instead, he either asks that it be rolled to him, or he lets the ball hit him in the chest, and then picks it up.
Occasionally, he pitches without socks. Or he'll chew licorice and brush his teeth in the dugout. Or he'll draw three crosses in the dirt on the back of the mound, then lick the dirt off his fingers.
"He's not a nut, that's just the way he is," assures his father, Charlie. "He's such a straight kid. Really. He just has these things that if they work for him, he'll keep doing them forever."
Maybe Wendell could share some of his hallowed habits with struggling Cubs reliever Dave Smith.
"After this year, I'll have a lot," Smith said. "If I blow a save, I'll change shoes. I went through a lot of them this year."
Perhaps Smith could borrow Ward's recipes for results. He's sure got enough.
"I'm always the first one on the field before batting practice and I have to play catch with Jim Acker and nobody else. After I finish my warmup in the bullpen, I spit my gum in the same place every game and I always hand my jacket to the same person," Ward said.
"I sit in the same place in the dugout every game. If someone is in my seat, I ask them to move. I always throw three fastballs, three curves and three fastballs when I warmup on the mound," he said.
Wait, there's more.
"I always wear sleeves whether it's 10 below or 120 above. In 1989, I started the season poorly and I figured it was because I was wearing a new pair of sleeves," he said. "I had my mom send me my old ones by Federal Express."
Oh, and one last thing.
"Don't pass me the salt. I don't touch the stuff," he said.
Players are not the only ones affected by these things, either.
"My wife is superstitious," San Francisco Giants manager Roger Craig said. "If she comes to a game and we win, she'll keep coming until we lose. If we lose, she won't come again until we win."
But what about this business of Friday the 13th, a date that comes about once a season?
"On Friday, April the 13th in 1984, someone came up to me before a game in Boston and asked me about the No. 13," said California catcher Lance Parrish, one of several players who wears the number.
"She wanted to know if I was superstitious in any way, and if anything bad had happened to me. Nothing that I remember had ever happened that stuck out in my mind. But some really strange things went on after that."
They sure did.
"I was batting cleanup that day and the first three guys got on and then I struck out. We batted all the way through the lineup, and I got up again. So I was the 13th batter to get up in that half-inning, and I hit into a double play," he said.
"We scored eight runs, and Boston came back to score five - which made it 13. And as the day progressed, so many numbers turned up 13, it was uncanny," Parrish recalled.
Final score: Detroit, of course, 13, Boston 9.