Who cares that Gisele Bundchen e-mailed her friends and family, asking them to pray for husband Tom Brady and the Patriots? Brady hasn't won the Big One since taking up with the Brazilian supermodel. He lost in the AFC title game (2007), got beat by the Giants in Super Bowl XLII (2008), missed the entire next season with a knee injury, threw three interceptions in a first-round playoff loss (2010), and again failed to get past the first playoff game last year. Unlike some New England fans, I'm not calling Gisele a jinx. I'm just looking for patterns.
The Giants, on the other hand, seem to understand the role of superstition in sports. Not so much their owner, Steve Tisch, who claims to believe in the power of toenail polish. He let his daughters paint his toenails Giants' colors -- red and blue -- over a month ago, and the team hasn't lost since. Tisch has decided not remove the lucky polish until after the game, which must cause him untold grief at the gym.
No, I'm counting on pizza to give the Giants an edge. According to the New York Post, the Giants' offensive linemen had pies from a particular New Jersey pizzeria flown to Indianapolis for their traditional Friday after-practice snack. They even made special arrangements with the TSA to get the lucky pizzas through security fast. Obviously, this is a team that respects its pregame superstitions.
And clean cars. Yahoo Sports reports that Giants' kicker Lawrence Tynes "superstitiously" washes his car by hand on the morning before every big home game. "You can really get into it and use it to take your mind off things," Tynes told Yahoo, describing his Zen-like approach. An Indianapolis car dealer has even offered this garage to Tynes so that the kicker can use a rag and bucket inside if the weather's too cold for outdoor washing this morning.
Studies show that winning sports teams tend to have more superstitions than losing teams. In the Giants' case, you can dismiss the weekly pizza parties and pregame car washing as superstitions. Or you can call them bonding rituals and meditative exercises. I call them intangibles, and I'm going with New York.
You were correct. The team that invoked the most lucky charms won the game.
ReplyDeleteSee http://www.nj.com/giants/index.ssf/2012/02/giants_take_a_superstitious_ro.html
Gisele Bundchen's effect on husband Tommy is not a superstition. It is a manifestation of the well know women-weaken-legs phenomenon. See R. Balboa (1976).
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