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When the Nationals traded Foster Griffin to the Guardians, I thought the return was underwhelming. Paul Toboni went for a quantity heavy package that was short on big name prospects. However, the deal has aged well mostly due to the emergence of Will Dion, who was excellent after joining the Nats.

Multi-inning relievers are becoming increasingly common across Major League Baseball. We saw how important they can be this postseason. The Brewers leaned heavily on their bullpen, and it resulted in a championship. Aaron Ashby and DL Hall were tasked with throwing multiple innings throughout the playoffs. 

It is not the flashiest profile in the world, but the multi-inning reliever is becoming very important. That is exactly the role Will Dion filled for the Nats down the stretch. He made 15 appearances for the Nats, and threw 30 innings. There were times when Dion was only asked to get one out, but other outings he gave the Nats as many as 4.1 innings. 

In a Nationals bullpen that desperately needed help, Dion pitched to a 3.00 ERA for the Nats. He also struck out 30 batters in 30 innings. Those strikeout numbers are impressive given his lack of velocity. Dion’s fastball only averaged 91.1 MPH this season. However, batters only hit .198 against the pitch and Dion got 31 of his 55 strikeouts on the heater. 

Dion has no ordinary 91 MPH fastball though. He releases the ball from an extreme over the top delivery and generates a ton of carry on his fastball. Dion averages 20 inches of induced vertical break on his fastball, which is one of the best marks in the league. That IVB means hitters misjudge his fastball and often swing underneath it.

It is impossible for a fastball to actually rise, but Dion’s heater resists gravity much more than most heaters, which gives hitters the illusion that it is rising. This unique fastball is Dion’s calling card, and it sets up the rest of his arsenal.

Speaking of the rest of his arsenal, the Nats actually made a tweak that really unlocked Dion. Before coming to DC, Dion’s changeup was on the periphery of his arsenal. He would throw it, but only around 15% of the time. When he joined the Nats, he started throwing the changeup way more. In August, he threw it a crazy 37.6% of the time. That came down to 24.4% in September, but that is still more usage than before. 

Dion’s changeup pairs very well with his rising fastball. It is a true bugs bunny changeup that looks like the fastball before dying while it comes to the plate. At 78 MPH, the changeup is 13 MPH slower than his fastball. That velocity difference really kept hitters off balance. Batters hit just .119 with a 33% whiff rate against that changeup.

It was a pitch he mostly used against right handed hitters, but by the end of the season, he was throwing more left on left changeups. Those two pitches are the centerpieces of his arsenal, but Dion also throws his curve 20% of the time. His curveball is mainly used to steal strikes early in the count. It does not get many whiffs, but he can land it in the zone often.

Dion’s lack of velocity puts a cap on his ceiling, but he has shown to be a capable multi-inning relief arm. He and Brad Lord will be asked to do the dirty work in the bullpen next season. It is not a flashy role, but it is one that teams need now more than ever.

If Dion can replicate the success he had down the stretch, that Foster Griffin trade should age fairly well. Dion has proven to be useful, and I think Josh Hartle has the ability to fill a similar role at some point. For half a season of Foster Griffin, that is not too bad. Paul Toboni did not shoot for the stars in this trade, but it looks like he has found at least one piece that will be a functional bullpen arm for years to come.

There was some hope that JR Ritchie could serve as a key member of the rotation for the Atlanta Braves this season. While many thought the rotation was going to be a problem area for the Braves, it turned out that the Braves did okay in that regard. Unfortunately, JR Ritchie didn’t really have much to do with that, as he largely struggled across 17 appearances (11 starts), with the team going 7-10 in those games.

How Acquired

JR Ritchie a homegrown prospect, drafted thirty-fifth overall in the 2022 draft. (He’s from Bainbridge Island, Washington, but development-wise, he’s Braves all the way.) He spent parts of five seasons in the minors before he made his MLB debut in April this year. He peaked as the 84th ranked prospect by Baseball America and 69th by FanGraphs.

What were the expectations?

Ritchie was somewhere around a 45-50 FV in the run-up to the season, and had pitched well before hitting Triple-A in 2025, though he stumbled a bit at the highest level of the minors. After a poor first start in Triple-A in 2026, Ritchie reeled off a dominant four-start stretch where it looked like he had nothing left to learn at Gwinnett, leading to his promotion.

Even before all that, though, Ritchie was getting the standard prospect projection of a fourth starter (somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 WAR on a rate basis). As with every pitcher getting similar projections (which is most prospect pitchers), it was up to Ritchie to prove he could do better (or worse) than that.

2026 Results

Unfortunately for Ritchie and the Braves, he mostly proved the latter. At the top line, Ritchie made 11 starts and six relief appearances, earning -0.3 fWAR with a 117 ERA-, 134 FIP-, and 112 xFIP-. His value was depressed by a high HR/FB (above 18 percent), but even without that, he pitched like a not particularly effective fifth starter.

Ritchie’s season was one of repeated chances and not doing much with them. His first rotation stint was five starts, in which things were a mixed bag at best. After another month in the minors, he then became one of the Braves’ yo-yo guys, making three starts and six relief appearances across four different call-ups in the span of about two months. The performance wasn’t much better. He made three starts to close out the season, and to the extent he had improved at all over the course of the year, it was hard to tell because teams blasted him for four homers in 15 1/3 innings in those final appearances.

Ritchie was not rostered for the Wild Card round; he made the NLDS roster, but did not appear.

What went right?

It’s not that Ritchie didn’t have success. It’s just that that success was limited to individual outings.

His MLB debut was exciting, as he went seven frames with a 7/2 K/BB ratio against a high-powered Nationals offense, giving up two solo homers in what was a very close game until the Braves pulled away before his final inning of work. It wasn’t entirely downhill from there, but his poor performances did dampen the excitement a bit. Still, plenty of stuff went right, just… intermittently.

For example, he had a couple of successful relief appearances against the Mets, totaling eight innings with a 9/3 K/BB ratio. He also had a nice innings-eating stint relief appearance against the Cardinals where he pitched 4 1/3 innings in a close game and was charged with a single run with a 2/2 K/BB ratio — it was his highest WPA game over the year and set up the Braves prevailing by scoring a run in the top of the ninth. He followed that up with a crisp one-inning relief appearance against the Rangers, giving some credence to the idea that he could be an effective relief pitcher. (It didn’t really last, though, as his xFIP was only slightly better as a reliever, though he did allow way fewer homers in shorter stints.) He also had one nice start against the Reds as the Braves ran down the clock on the season, with an 8/3 K/BB ratio — but this too was marred by a homer, as well as the fact that his other two starts around this one were horrible.

All in all, across his 17 appearances, Ritchie had five (two starts and three relief appearances) with an FIP- of 80 or lower, and four (two starts and two relief appearances) with an xFIP- of 80 or below. So, it wasn’t entirely hopeless… just mostly a bummer.

Pitch-wise, his curve was effective with an xwOBA-against under .300 and a whiff rate of nearly 30 percent. Its success wasn’t surprising, as it has many of the makings of a great pitch: he throws it harder than a normal curve, but is able to keep a reasonable depth on it while also adding some horizontal break, giving it two-plane movement of the sort batters don’t tend to expect, while mirroring its spin against his other offerings.

What went wrong?

At the top line, none of his results or metrics suggested any degree of effectiveness, which means he had a bunch of problematic outings. Even his xERA was really bad, which suggests a lack of contact management beyond problems in the “traditional” pitching assessments. He struck out fewer batters than league average, had an egregiously high walk rate (especially considering his lack of strikeouts), suffered from harder-than-average contact, and made it easy for batters to pull the ball in the air. Really, he pretty much struggled across the board in terms of his pitching approach: he didn’t pound the zone, he didn’t get whiffs in the zone, he didn’t get chase, he didn’t put pitches on the corner, he didn’t get ahead with strike one, and he didn’t avoid meatballs.

On a game level, he was a disaster for the team’s win expectancy in six of his 11 starts. The worst was him getting shelled for three homers in two innings against the Giants: the Braves were down 5-0 after he faced 11 batters, and lost 7-5. But, he also struggled at times in relief, like an outing where he had a 1/2 K/BB ratio while on the mound for four outs with a slim lead against the Pirates, though the Braves gutted that one out. And, it’s not like all of this meant he didn’t just get BABIPed among shoddy pitching in other outings, like his start in September against the Cubs (5/2 K/BB ratio but two homers and six runs charged in 4 2/3 innings) or his final start of his first stint against the Marlins, where he had a 5/3 K/BB ratio and didn’t get tagged for a homer, but got BABIPed for six runs charged anyway. And then there was the outing where he put together a pathetic 2/6 K/BB ratio against the Mariners in Seattle, which was one of those “Braves decided to stop managing aggressively” disasters that stuck with them through the season.

If you look at his actual pitch metrics, the high degree of struggle wasn’t surprising. Ritchie lacked command of any of his pitches, working more like a junkballer attempting to get by on the element of surprise. Unfortunately, the lack of command meant that many of his pitches missed badly in the zone where they were hittable (especially his curve and four-seamer), while he also had a tendency for bad, nowhere-near misses with those pitches and his changeup. On top of that, only his curve had good shape — the natural sink on his four-seamer made it somewhat problematic that he tried to execute it at the top of the zone; meanwhile, his sinker, which he threw more than his four-seamer, had a lot of drop but was thrown “high” and ended up letter high way too often.

There are things to work with in Ritchie’s profile, but the lack of command and the fact that he tries to go fastball up, changeup down when all of those pitches have a downward movement profile is a disaster. He needs to clean up his mechanics to allow his curve to eviscerate hitters, but in concert with that, he needs to actually have a pitching plan that takes advantage of his pitch shape, instead of working against it.

2027 Outlook

JR Ritchie was a rookie in 2026 and unless something drastic happens, he is still in the plans to develop into a starter for the Braves for now and the future. Odds are that the Front Office has not given up on him and depending on which players the Braves acquire in the offseason, we could see him in both the rotation and the bullpen at the MLB level in 2027. It may not be the most exciting news based on his 2026 results, but the odds lean that way for the moment.

Given that his types of struggles aren’t unusual for rookie arms, Ritchie’s projections haven’t taken a big hit. Steamer’s early release has him as an 0.8 WAR guy in 99 innings as a swingman, which is still in that fourth starter tier. Once again, it’s up to Ritchie to prove he can do better… and avoid doing the opposite, like he did in 2026.

We have been doing this for a few years now: looking at the top free agents, using the contract Ben Clemens suggests he’ll get, and asking whether you would like the Jays to give him that contract. This year, the lockout makes it a little more complicated.

Number one on both Keith Law and Ben Clemens’ list of top free agents is, of course, Tarik Skubal. Skubal turns 30 on the 20th of this month. He won the AL Cy Young in 2024 and 2025 (this year he split time between the AL and NL). He had a terrific 2026 season: a 2.72 ERA in 26 starts, a 12-7 record, 186 strikeouts in 158.2 innings, and just 27 walks.

Career, he is 66-44 with a 3.02 ERA and a 22.7 bWAR.

The only downside is his injury history. Three elbow surgeries since college, one this past season. But then, he’s made 88 starts in the last three seasons.

Keith Law said:

Skubal is the obvious star of this free-agent class, a No. 1 starter on any club when he’s healthy, although we didn’t see that version of Skubal as much in 2026 as we did in 2024 and 2025, when he won back-to-back Cy Young Awards and was worth 6+ WAR each season (using either version of WAR). He can show three plus pitches — his upper-90s four-seamer, wipeout changeup with excellent arm speed and some fading action, and a slider that plays above its “shape,” due in part to its velocity, up to 92-93. He’s posted walk rates below 5 percent in four straight seasons, consistently limits hard contact, and doesn’t let hitters pull the ball in the air that much, so his BABIPs have come in better than league average in every year of his career — he’s at .281 overall and has never allowed a BABIP of .300 in any season, which is Clayton Kershaw-level pitching.

Clemens:

There are no bad free agent markets for players as good as Skubal, which made his contract easier to forecast. Teams pursuing his services want Skubal specifically, not Skubal or someone like him. He’s the best free agent in the class by such a wide margin that his market is more or less separate from the rest. If you’re looking for a good pitcher who might turn in an ace-level season, there are a few options. If you’re looking for an ace, it’s just Skubal. Thus, the question is how much he’ll eclipse the old record contract for a pitcher, not whether he will.

Clements figures he will get a 10-year contract at $38 million a year, for a total of $380 million, taking him to his age 39 season.

This is not only a blast from the Cubs past, but the view of bleacher fans shows hairstyles and dress styles for what could be said to be “average” fans in the mid-1980s.

Honestly, the fans you see don’t look that much different from what you’d see in the bleachers today. It is sobering for me, personally, to realize that everyone you see in this photo is at least in their 60s now, possibly older.

Anyway.

The photo is a little bit washed out, so the numbers on the board aren’t that easy to read. I put it through Photoshop, did a little bit of adjustment on the brightness and contrast and got this closeup view of the scoreboard:

It’s 3:45 and we’re in the top of the third inning, so this is a game that likely began at 3:05. There are no NITE GAME indicators on any of the other games, so this would at first glance appear to be a Sunday afternoon, possibly in the Cubs’ NL East title year of 1984.

This is where you go wrong with assumptions. The batter is Garry Templeton, so the Cubs are playing the Padres. (Yes, the city names are still a bit blurry, but Templeton was a Padre from 1982-91, so it’s got to be the Padres. We also know it has to be in the 1983-85 time frame, because that’s when those beer ads were on the board.

But I looked through all the Cubs/Padres 1984 games — including the two NLCS games — and nothing matched the Cubs having a 4-0 lead in the top of the third, having scored two runs in each of the first two innings.

Instead, this game was played Tuesday, July 9, 1985, in front of 33,085 on what’s clearly a gorgeous summer day at Wrigley. The pair of two-run innings were both courtesy of Ryne Sandberg — he hit two-run homers in each of the first two innings. Not an easy thing to do, incidentally! The Cubs got a couple more runners on base in the first after Sandberg homered with Billy Hatcher on base. Then in the second, a groundout was followed by a single by Steve Trout and a fly ball by Hatcher before Sandberg homered again.

In the top of the third, Bruce Bochy, then the Padres catcher, grounded out. That brought up Templeton, which is what we see on the board. There’s one out and one strike on Templeton. He eventually grounded to third base in this at-bat.

The Cubs won the game 7-3. Sandberg went 3-for-5 with three runs scored, including the pair of two-run homers. Hatcher, who later went on to have good years in Houston and Cincinnati after the Cubs ill-advisedly traded him for Jerry Mumphrey, went 3-for-4. Trout threw seven strong innings and got the win.

There were some night games on this day so I’m not sure why NITE GAME was not shown on the board. After this win the Cubs were 43-38, in fourth place but just 5.5 games behind the first-place Cardinals, theoretically still in the NL East race. But pitching injuries killed that team and they went just 34-46 the rest of the way and finished fourth at 77-84, 23.5 games out of first place.

Just another little slice of life from Wrigley Field, more than 40 years ago.

I recently came across this post on X which listed the players the Phillies have signed to one-year contracts over the past few seasons.

There’s a saying that “there’s no such thing as a bad one-year contract,” but that list seems to work against that belief. To be fair, most of those guys weren’t signed to be major contributors, and they did find some usable bench players (Brad Miller, Johan Camargo) over the years. But there were some players – particularly relievers – who they expected to be at least semi-major contributors. Sadly, the best season out of any of them was Craig Kimbrel. (Kimbrel was actually very good for much of the year before he collapsed late in the season and the playoffs.)

As it turns out, there’s usually a reason why players sign for one-year deals. If there was a lot of optimism regarding how good these players were going to be, they would likely be attracting multi-year offers.

Looking ahead to the 2027 season, the Phillies once again have some holes to fill, and they only have so much money to fill them. Many fans are dreaming of filling one of the outfield spots with a free agent like Seiya Suzuki or Randy Arozarena.

I expect the Phillies to be in the mix for those players, but so will a lot of teams, and it isn’t clear if the Phillies can make the best offer. Unless you’re the Dodgers, teams generally can’t have high priced players at every position. While the pending player lockout might change the financial outlook for the Phillies, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be able to simply outspend themselves out of their current fringe of contention status.

The Phillies also might not want to lock themselves into yet another multi-year contract for a player’s decline phase. Sometimes those deals work out, but it isn’t hard to imagine one of them turning into Nick Castellanos 2.0.

The best alternative, of course, is to start developing young players to fill those holes. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Phillies could emulate the World Champion Brewers and call up a Cooper Pratt or Jackson Chourio? But based on the state of the minor leagues, the Phillies do not have many players who they can project to be regular contributors next year. (They REALLY need Aidan Miller to hit!)

Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if the Phillies have to once again turn to a few one-year contracts to fill out their starting lineup, bench, and bullpen. Maybe they get lucky this time around and can find players who actually provide good value. But it seems like more often than not, what they’ll end up with is the next Adolis Garcia or Jordan Romano.

I didn’t move.

Not when Sam Antonacci doubled to open the second game of the American League Wild Card series against the Houston Astros. Not when Kyle Teel singled him home. And certainly not when Andrew Benintendi delivered a two-run single that helped the Chicago White Sox build a four-run lead before the Astros could record their second out.

There I sat, practically frozen in place, convinced that the slightest movement might somehow bring Chicago’s offensive outburst to an abrupt end.

Never mind that I was hundreds of miles from Daikin Park in Houston. Never mind that the White Sox players had absolutely no idea who I was, what I was wearing or whether I had gotten up to use the bathroom. And never mind that my position on the couch had precisely zero influence on a baseball traveling toward home plate at nearly 100 mph.

The White Sox were scoring. I wasn’t moving.

It wasn’t until Tristan Peters singled home Chicago’s fourth run and the inning finally ended that I allowed myself to get comfortable again.

Welcome to the wonderfully irrational world of sports superstitions, where otherwise reasonable adults become convinced that a lucky jersey, a particular snack or the precise arrangement of living room furniture might determine whether their favorite team wins or loses.

And apparently, I’m not alone.

A little luck never hurt anyone

My postseason wardrobe consisted of White Sox jerseys.

Every game. No exceptions.

When football season arrives, the situation becomes considerably more complicated. I pay attention to whether my team (either the Chicago Bears or Jacksonville Jaguars) is playing at home or on the road, choosing my jersey accordingly. I try to eat the same foods, snack at the same times and sit in the same location.

It’s definitely easy for my wife. Honestly, she probably thinks it’s a little obnoxious. 

Sometimes a particular shirt becomes lucky. Other times, a hat gets blamed for a loss.

I understand how ridiculous this sounds.

I also know that if the White Sox had continued scoring every time I remained motionless during the playoffs, there’s a good chance someone would have needed to bring me dinner.

But the impulse to create rituals around sporting events isn’t unusual. A 2018 study published in Sport Management Review examined how superstitions influence the experience of watching sports. Researchers found that these behaviors were associated with fans’ emotional states during games and that more superstitious fans were more likely to attribute outcomes to outside influences such as fate or officiating.

In other words, fans aren’t necessarily trying to control a baseball game. They’re trying to control how helpless they feel while watching one.

A separate study published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2021 interviewed 24 soccer fans in Israel and identified two important elements of their superstitions: timing and location. Some fans performed rituals at specific moments. Others attached significance to where they watched games or sat inside stadiums. Researchers concluded that these behaviors could help fans manage the uncertainty and stress associated with sporting events.

That sounds suspiciously familiar. Especially the part about not moving.

The unwritten rules of being a fan

Superstitions aren’t exclusive to baseball.

Football fans develop routines around kickoff times, lucky clothing and where they sit. Some refuse to watch field-goal attempts. Others avoid speaking during important plays.

Hockey fans have their own rituals, sometimes refusing to celebrate a lead too early or changing where they stand during a power play.

Basketball fans might stay in the same chair during a shooting streak, wear a lucky shirt or refuse to discuss a possible victory before the final buzzer.

The details differ, but the underlying idea is remarkably consistent: Something good happened while I was doing this, therefore, I must keep doing this.

Of course, that logic has one enormous problem: Correlation isn’t causation.

A White Sox home run doesn’t happen because I happen to be wearing a black jersey instead of a white one. A missed field goal isn’t the result of someone opening a bag of potato chips at the wrong moment.

And yet, when the stakes increase, so does the temptation to believe.

In a 2006 study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, researchers found that elite athletes were more committed to their rituals when the importance of the competition and the uncertainty surrounding its outcome increased. The research focused on athletes rather than spectators, but the emotional connection isn’t difficult to recognize.

A meaningless baseball game in May might not require any special preparation.

But Game 7 of the World Series? Suddenly, every article of clothing becomes a potential competitive advantage.

Baseball’s original creatures of habit

If fans are superstitious, baseball players have been perfecting the practice for generations.

Hall-of-Famer Wade Boggs famously followed an elaborate routine that included eating chicken before games, taking batting practice at specific times and following carefully established habits throughout the day. Boggs, who finished his career with 3,010 hits and a .328 batting average, believed luck played a meaningful role in his success.

In an August 2025 interview on MLB’s The Road to Cooperstown podcast, Boggs reflected on the importance of those rituals.

“I’ve always said I’d rather be lucky than good,” Boggs told MLB.com.

That might be one of the most revealing statements ever made about baseball superstition.

Boggs was unquestionably good. He won five batting titles, earned 12 All-Star selections and became one of the greatest contact hitters of his generation. But even with all that ability, he wanted every possible advantage, real or imagined.

Other players have taken their routines to even greater extremes.

Former major league pitcher Turk Wendell became known for brushing his teeth between innings, chewing black licorice and observing a collection of unusual habits throughout his career. Hall-of-Famer Larry Walker was famously attached to the number three, incorporating it into his uniform number and other aspects of his routine. And former Chicago Cubs outfielder Moisés Alou was among the players who openly discussed unconventional habits involving his hands and batting preparation.

Baseball has always been filled with characters whose rituals might seem strange anywhere outside a clubhouse.

But are modern players any different? Not necessarily.

A 2025 study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences examined superstitious rituals among athletes through interviews and focus groups involving 30 participants. Researchers identified connections between rituals, confidence, anxiety and the perceived importance of competition.

A more recent systematic review, examining 27 studies, likewise found that superstitious behavior remains common in sports.

There isn’t sufficient evidence to say today’s major leaguers are more or less superstitious than players from 20 or 50 years ago.

What seems clear is that the desire for routine hasn’t disappeared simply because the game has become more analytical. Baseball now measures everything from spin rate and launch angle to bat speed and the movement of a pitch. But there still isn’t a statistic capable of explaining why a player feels more comfortable wearing the same socks during a winning streak.

October brings out the believers

And that brings us to the final four teams who were in the running for the 2026 World Series.

Every pitch matters. Every baserunner creates anxiety. Every questionable managerial decision threatens to send thousands of people searching for something, anything that they can control.

In Cleveland, fans had endured a championship drought dating to 1948. That’s 78 years of waiting for another World Series title. Milwaukee had never won a World Series, despite reaching the Fall Classic in 1982. Tampa Bay had reached the World Series twice, in 2008 and 2020, without winning a championship. And Los Angeles, with a considerably more recent history of postseason success, entered this year’s championship series attempting to defend its title again and pull off a rare threepeat.

Once the pennants were won, we were guaranteed to have a first-time World Series winner, but the franchise histories weren’t quite parallel.

The city of Milwaukee had experienced a title, albeit under the Braves moniker and nearly 70 years ago. The Brewers fan base hadn’t even seen a pennant for 44 years.

The Rays had been there twice, but couldn’t finish the job.

Can the Rays finish what previous teams couldn’t?

There is no reliable evidence that either fan base is more superstitious than the other. But with a World Series championship on the line, it’s difficult to imagine that every lucky shirt, preferred viewing location and carefully maintained game-day routine didn’t get put to the test.

And if Milwaukee started its run of four wins in five games to win it all while a fan happened to be sitting in an uncomfortable position? I suspect that person remained there for quite some time.

Does any of it really matter?

Here’s where I have to acknowledge something.

I don’t genuinely believe that the White Sox lost to Cleveland in the ALDS because I wore the wrong jersey.

I don’t believe that getting up to refill my drink caused a strikeout.

And I certainly don’t believe that a team of professional athletes needs me to remain motionless on my couch to score runs.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

The scientific explanation is more compelling than the supernatural one. Superstitions give people a sense of control in situations where they have almost none.

For athletes, rituals may help establish a familiar routine, regulate emotions and improve confidence. For fans, the benefit can be psychological rather than competitive. Research suggests that superstitious behaviors can influence how spectators experience games, even without influencing what happens on the field.

There’s also something wonderfully communal about it: Sports fans recognize these behaviors in one another.

We understand why someone refuses to wash a jersey during a winning streak. We might laugh at a friend who insists on eating the same meal before every game, but we’ll probably ask what was on the menu after the team wins.

We know it doesn’t make sense, but we do it anyway.

Perhaps that’s because being a sports fan has never been entirely rational. We invest enormous amounts of time, money and emotional energy into teams whose success we cannot control. We celebrate victories as though we contributed to them, and mourn defeats as though we personally failed. We develop attachments to players we’ve never met and stadiums we may never visit.

And somewhere along the way, we convince ourselves that a little luck might make the difference.

The White Sox season ended despite my carefully selected jerseys and game-day routines.

I could take that as proof that superstitions don’t work. I could abandon the rituals, sit wherever I want and wear whatever happens to be clean.

But when the White Sox return to the field next spring, I’ll probably reach into the closet for the same jersey. I’ll settle into my usual spot. And if Chicago starts scoring runs?

I’m not moving.