The Indian Walk; A New Ritual

Athletes are naturally superstitious.

Players will do crazy things to ride their hot streak and to get out of their slump which conjures up images of Nuke LaLoosh but we won't go there.

In my senior year of high school my baseball team made it to the semi-final game of the Western Mass tournament. My pitching coach came up to me prior to the game and asked me if I wanted to do the "Indian Walk". Naturally I was curious about it and asked what it was. He told me the story of when he pitching in the minors and he was out for a night on the town and had a little too much fun and lost his shoes.

He walked back to the hotel it started to snow which was unusual for april. He ended up walking all the way back in the snow and he was pitching that day. After his walk, he pitched one of the best games of his life. A 3-hit shut out. He attributed his success to his walk earlier that day and his teammates dubbed it the "Indian Walk".

I'm not sure how much of this story I believe but before the game that day we raked the dirt in front of our dugout so it was nice and smooth and a younger member of the team took his shoes off and walked across the dirt which was supposed to bring us luck. We made our own "Indian Walk"

In the end, we ended up losing that game so I don't know how much luck it actually brought us but I was part of a new found tradition that is done every year before a playoff game. So in a way we became part of something bigger than the game that will last for a long while.