Title: Home Plate

General Information about Item:

• Magic Superstition (Sympathetic Magic)
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: B.D.
• Date Collected: 11-5-21

Informant Data: B.D. is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2022 who is majoring in government. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Matthews, North Carolina where he started playing baseball at the age of 7. He is currently competing on the varsity baseball team at Dartmouth College, playing as an infielder.  

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: In baseball, there are four bases that a player must round in order to score a point for their team. They can advance to the next base when the person batting hits the ball in play and it is not caught. They must get to the next base before being tagged by the ball, or before a player on the other team holding the ball touches the base they are running to. Once a person on the batting team reaches “home plate,” which is the final base, their team gets a point. 
• Social Context: This superstition was collected at the Baker Library when asking the informant if he had any personal or team superstitions. It has been around for a very long time and he is not really sure where or how it originated, but he found out about it before his first practice with the Dartmouth baseball team.

Item:

• If a freshman touches home plate before their first Ivy League game, then they will play poorly for the rest of the season and the team will lose that first game. 

Transcript:

• “For team superstitions, we have this one where no one who is a freshman can touch home plate until they play their first Ivy League game… If they do, they will definitely play badly and the team will lose that first game.”

Informant’s Comments:

• “In my time at Dartmouth, all the freshmen have been very wary of touching home plate, and no one has broken this rule, so it seems as though everyone believes in it, including myself.”

Collector’s Comments:

• I find this superstition interesting in that it not only affects the individual who touches home plate, but it affects the team as a whole as well.

Collector’s Name: Drew Clutterbuck

Tags/Keywords:

• Superstition
• American
• Baseball
• Dartmouth
• Home Plate
• Freshmen