March 2023 MBR The Sports Shelf

The Sports Shelf

Field of Magic: Baseball's Superstitions, Curses and Taboos
John Cairney
McFarland & Company
PO Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640
https://mcfarlandbooks.com
9781476685465, $29.95, PB, 215pp

https://www.amazon.com/Field-Magic-Baseballs-Superstitions-Curses/dp/1476685460

Synopsis: Superstition has been a part of baseball from the beginning. From good luck charms to human mascots, from ritual statues of Babe Ruth to the curse of Colonel Sanders, there may be almost as many superstitions as their are players and fans.

With the publication of "Field of Magic: Baseball's Superstitions, Curses and Taboos", academician and baseball historian John Caimey draws upon social science, religious studies and SABRmetrics, to explores the rich history of supernatural belief in the game and documents a wide variety of rituals, fetishes, taboos and jinxes. Some of these have changed over time but coping with uncertainty on the field through magical thinking remains a constant.

Critique: "Field of Magic: Baseball's Superstitions, Curses and Taboos" is an extraordinary study of the role and history of superstition in the sport of baseball on the part of players and fans alike. Enhanced for the reader with historic b/w photos, eighteen pages of Chapter Notes, a four page Bibliography, and a twelve page Index, "Field of Magic" will have a very special and unique appeal to dedicated baseball fans everywhere -- making it an unreservedly recommended and enduringly popular addition personal reading lists, as well as highschool, community, and academic library Baseball History & American Sports History collections.

Editorial Note: John Cairney (https://hmns.uq.edu.au/profile/4353/john-cairney) is a professor and the head of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia. Originally from Canada and a lifelong Toronto Blue Jays fan, he is the author of four other books and more than 300 published journal articles. He is also a member of the Society for American Baseball Research.

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