Some might attribute the Yankees’ loss in Game One of the World Series to poor hitting or sloppy fielding, opening-game nerves, overconfidence or the pounding rain. But most of us know it was a good old-fashioned jinx.
The day before the game, Derek Jeter taped an episode of “The Biggest Loser.” (At this point, I’m slapping my head and wondering, What was this guy thinking?) You don’t do anything the day before a World Series opener that has the word “loser” in it.
Jeter was tempting fate, exhibiting overconfidence, defying the gods that confer bad luck. It’s like when a pitcher has a no-hitter going -- you don’t start congratulating him until the very last pitch is thrown and missed.
The same thing in golf. My husband has a habit of saying to me, “That’s three great shots in a row!” He means it to be encouraging, but it’s a jinx; I never hit a fourth good shot.
Jinxes aren’t limited to sports, and I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t believe in a jinx of some kind. Who in his right mind would say, “I haven’t had a crippling attack of gastritis in months” without knocking wood? Everyone knows that bragging about anything, from good fortune to good health to good news to good grades, invites a seismic course correction. We are hardwired to anticipate some sort of retribution for gloating about good luck or even for having been blessed with an unfair share of good luck.
According to my research, the word jinx (besides being a great Scrabble word) comes from Latin and is associated with the wryneck bird of Asia, which was used in witchcraft rituals. The bird can twist its neck 180 degrees and hiss like a snake. I wouldn’t mess with it.
The bird can appear in unlikely places. I’ve found evidence of its existence even in my kitchen. My mother looks through the oven door and declares how beautifully the 12-egg cake is rising. Two minutes later, it’s leaking air and fallen flat as a pancake.
My opponent in bridge says, “You’ve had such fantastic cards all afternoon,” and I know very well what she’s up to.
“I never get colds,” my husband says, but he can’t finish what he’s saying because of the awful cough that comes blasting up from his chest.”
Just last weekend I was the victim of a jinx I didn’t even know existed. I was in Florida, and my son took me out fishing for the day. He asked me to pack lunch, and I did. On the way out to the ocean, I felt hungry, so I began munching a banana. When my son saw me in the stern, he blanched white. “You brought a banana on the boat?” he yelled. “What are you thinking?”
I was thinking of a nutritious snack, blissfully ignorant of the well-known banana jinx on the high seas. Apparently you never, ever bring a banana on a boat. Some captains won’t allow banana muffins or even banana sun screen. It all goes back to the days when boats carrying banana cargo sometimes were overrun by vicious, aggressive banana spiders.
“Finish the banana,” my son said. “The damage is done.” We pulled in for gas and the kid at the gas pump spotted me throwing the banana peel in the trash. I saw him holding his head and muttering, “I don’t believe it. She’s eating a banana.”
We fished for seven hours. We saw snapper and jacks and dolphins and grouper. They were swimming around our bait and tugging at the lines. They were smiling and hungry and eating all the chum. But we didn’t get a bite. Seven hours. Plenty of fish in the ocean, but none for us.
We were 20 miles offshore when we turned toward the inlet and home. I apologized for the banana jinx. Eyeing clouds on the horizon, my son said, “Don’t worry about the fishing. We’ll be lucky to get back alive.”
