Coins In the Socks

Title: Coins in the Socks

General Information about Item:

Informant Data:

Andrew Fava is a sophomore at the University of Florida. He grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and has one sister named Alex. Andrew spends his time playing baseball and hanging out with friends. He is a member of the Varsity Basketball Team and a double major in Psychology and Criminality at the University of Florida.

Contextual Data:

Social Context: The informant was interviewed over FaceTime in regard to his superstition. He says that he accidentally left coins in his socks during his baseball game. He ended up playing really well that game and started to put coins in his socks whenever he played. His teammates saw his success and the entire team began putting coins in their socks.
Cultural Context: Many sports players have unique superstitions that they believe help them perform better. This particular superstition is unique to Andrew and his friends. The sport f baseball is often describes as “America’s Pastime.”

Item:

Every high school baseball game, Andrew would put coins in his socks in order to have good luck in the game.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript of Associated File:

“The superstition I developed was playing baseball with coins in my socks. My freshman year of high school I stopped at a 7/11 to get some Big League Chew on the way to one of my games, and I didn’t have any pockets to put the coins in so I put them in my sock. And then I ended up playing the game with the coins in my socks, because I forgot they were in there, um, and it turns out I went four for four that game. So for my entire high school career I played with coins in my socks.”

Informants Comments:

“After I started to have success with putting coins in my socks, my whole team started to do it as well.”

Collector’s Comments:

This is one of the many sports superstitions that we were told in our interviews.

Collector’s Name: Oliver Campbell

Tags/Keywords:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive