Red Sox Batting Helmets

It's pine tar. To speed up the game, they don't let hitters go back to the on deck circle to get the pine tar rag, so they spread it on their helmet.

 

I think it's more that they get pine tar on their gloves every time they bat, and some of it spreads to the helmet when they touch it, and then they superstitiously refuse to get their helmets cleaned.

 

For some it's that. But GLU is right.
If you look at Cabrera for example, he's only been there 2 months, it's really cruded up. One of em once said, I forgot who, that it's also easier to control the amount of pine tar on the bottom of the bat where they hold it. They just touch their hand to their helmet.

 

I used to work for a minor league baseball team. Good grief, the superstitious rituals those guys used to concoct. I think you'd be hard pressed to find another team sport with more supersition in it.

 

Which team?

Hockey players are pretty superstitious, too.

 

Looks like they ran out of TP and used their helmets

 

Birmingham Barons, in the White Sox system. The one Michael Jordan played for.

 

i gotta say that hockey players are more superstitious. hell, baseball players shave during the playoffs...

 

I overheard players talking about trading and wearing unwashed underwear trying to snap losing streaks.

 

They have long hair all season long.

 

I'd disagree. The amount of superstition seems to track with the amount of free time players have. Not shaving is one thing - and having shot an entire NHL season last year, I learned about a whole bunch of other superstitions - but for my money baseball players are the wackiest.

Anyone that "competes", whether it's darts, bowling, soccer, whatever usually finds that they tend towards some "obsessive/compulsive" behavior. It's a means of tuning out distraction and make sure you're not forgetting something. Then on top of that are the true superstitions like not talking to a pitcher during a no-hitter, not shaving during the playoffs, touching a rock when entering the field of play, etc...

 

Well, if that's not incentive for everyone on the team to bust ass for the whole nine innings, I don't know what would be. "Win or go home" pressure in playoffs is one thing, "lose and wear Jose's boxers...", man, that takes the motivation to a different level.

 

At the time, were they at the new place, or still at Rickwood?

 

I was their the first year of the new place (Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.) Unfortunately, it was before they instituted the Rickwood Classic (the Barons have returned to doing one game a year there.) I went to many a game at Rickwood though.

 

I went to a game in Kodak, TN last year. Birmingham was just a little too far south of the Smokies to make it there.