As Red Sox go further in MLB Playoffs, superstitious fans keep lucky charms handy

BOSTON — The Red Sox have been playing some great baseball going into the ALCS, but is that enough? Some Sox fans have their own rituals and superstitions on game days.

“If you are superstitious, you are superstitious,” one fan said.

People told us they do everything from wearing the right shirt to watching at home to finding something they had on when the team won before. Dottie Pearson said she has the right shirt.

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“My Red Sox shirt, but you have to make sure you have to change your underwear...every game,” Pearson said.

Sister Anne D’Arcy wears her brother’s lucky hat and does a lot of praying.

“Definitely, definitely. We think so, it got them ‘04; that was the big one,” she said.

Dr. Edward Silberman is a psychiatrist at Tufts Medical Center.

“These things serve to try to give a sense that they can actually control the future or outcome,” Dr. Silberman said, adding that these rituals can relieve some anxiety.

“They are very unlikely to work in the sense that people may think they do in [the] sense of it being magical.”

The doctor explained the rituals are normal behavior.

“It’s a normal human tendency to connect things and mistake an association for a cause. ‘Oh, I had the best day ever when I was wearing that shirt, so that is my lucky shirt,’” Dr. Silberman said.

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We asked die-hard fan Dottie Pearson why not washing her lucky shirt helps.

“It keeps the goodness going. Even if they lose, you have to keep the goodness,” Pearson said.

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