Professional Athletes and their Quirky Superstitions

          A superstition is the belief that one event or action causes another without any realistic chance of the events being correlated. Superstitions have seemed to be widely adopted in the professional realm of sports which leads to collegiate, high school, and little league sports to follow in their footsteps. Surprisingly some of the best athletes in their respective sports believed heavily in superstitions. There is a lot that goes into being a professional athlete. They train hard, have raw talent, and always seem to be able to perform under pressure. However for whatever reason, some of these athletes believe their superstitions take them to the next level. Michael Jordan, arguably the best basketball player of all time used to believe that wearing his UNC shorts underneath is games shorts brought him luck. He wore those shorts every game which led him to wear longer game shorts to cover them up, which actually started a fashion trend in the NBA. Another bizarre story is about Hall of Famer Wade Boggs, who was a professional baseball player for the Boston Red Sox. Boggs used to eat chicken before every game and take batting practice at the same exact time every day. In an even more bizarre story a professional baseball player named Jason Giambi used to wear a golden thong to get out of a hitting slump! Although these superstitions seem quite silly and obviously have no direct correlation to helping an athlete, there could be one slight advantage of believing in superstitions. This advantage could be a mental advantage for an athlete knowing if they follow their ritual then they can build confidence and perform well. 

http://www.mensfitness.com/life/sports/10-most-superstitious-athletes