Over at Wired Magazine, there’s an interview with the Matthew Hutson, author of the new book The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking. The following excerpt is from the first question:
The construction worker who secretly buried a Red Sox jersey in the new Yankee stadium, in the wet concrete. A year later the Yankees found out and made a big deal out of it. The fans were calling for blood and for it to be removed, and the Yankees didn’t want the stadium to be cursed, so they jack-hammered it out of several feet of concrete and pulled this thing, this shirt out of the ground in front of media.
The fact people were concerned that a shirt bearing the name and number of a Red Sox player could curse a stadium by sitting in the concrete of a floor? To me that is weird, funny and illogical behavior.
But by looking at that kind of thing, you get a chance to explore: What do you mean by cursed? Why do we care so much about symbols? How do we judge cause and effect? It gives you a great window into human cognition.
I had no idea this went on. But sure enough, here’s an article at ESPN about it. Pretty hilarious stuff. I can only assume someone saw the guy do it, otherwise I can’t imagine how they’d have found it. The best part is it was an Ortiz jersey.
Now, here’s something to ponder. Would the jersey really have served as a hex if no one knew it was there? Imagine the mythology that could have developed if the guy had gotten away with it and then leaked it out that the jersey was there. Yankee fans would have blamed every bit of bad luck on it for years, I have no doubt.
Of course, as it worked out, the Yankee’s won the World Series in their first year in their new ballpark. So obviously the spell was broken.