I have never been terribly superstitious, but recently, I've begun to notice some very suspicious coincidences.  The logical half (quarter?  eighth?) of my brain knows that it's complete nonsense, but I cant seem to help but think that my own emotions or actions are starting to impact the actual outcome. 

I first noticed it last year when the Ducks were in the BCS Championship game against Auburn.  Never having been a huge football fan, I accidentally fell into being a Ducks fan due to the influence of my sports-crazed husband, Mr. Gordon O'Neil.  As the season wore on, I got hooked on the sport, hooked on the Ducks, hooked on Chip Kelly and hooked on LaMichael James.  December found me jumping up and down like a true fan as we went undefeated.  So naturally, when it was time for the Championship game, it was a big day.  Such a big day, in fact, that I planned a special Duck-themed menu and made sure my Ducks t-shirt was clean and in good order for the big game.  And then our power went out and we missed well over half of the game.  And I couldn't bake the calzones that I had so carefully prepared for.  And when the power returned, we lost.  Let's never discuss that day again.

Fast forward to September of this year.  In my campaign for the Best Wife in the Universe, I planned a weekend for Gordon in St. Louis, MO.  We arrived on a Saturday, excited to attend two Cardinals games at Busch Stadium.  And as a coincidence, there was also a Ducks game on just when we arrived.  We raced to the hotel, checked in, and dashed out to find a sports bar where we could see our Ducks opening game.  We walked for an hour, looking for a place with a TV larger than 9 inches wide and a decent menu.  We never did find it, but we settled for a hole in the wall called Jack Patricks.  We slid into a booth, made friends with the bartender named Bill and watched the Ducks fall apart.  It was painful.  So long, undefeated season.  Stupid LSU. 

The next day, giddy with excitement to see watch our team in the home stadium, we spent the morning shopping for Cardinals gear.  I wore my cute hat, which gave me a headache, and Gordon wore his special new birthday hat.  We looked so cute.  It was a great moment when Jon Jay hit a homerun out of the park.  And then the stupid Reds with their stupid Brandon Phillips beat us.  Not such a great moment.

Never mind, we told ourselves.  Cheer up!  We were sure we would beat the Brewers the next day.  Once again, we donned our red and white finest and set off for the Stadium.  The game started badly.  We sat in front of one of those kinds of fans who calls all the players by their first names and treats them all as if they were her eight year old sons.  That damn woman had an opinion on every thing and wouldn't shut up.  The situation reached crisis proportions when we went down by a couple of runs and just couldn't take it any more.  So we left our seats, doubled up on some beers and waited until seats opened up in the bleachers section.  While we were much happier, our beloved Cards still lost. 

So basically, what I'm saying is that I have a real concern that I am having some kind of freak-ish, eerie effect on my teams.  Is this even possible?  Well of course not, at least not in the physical world.  But what if there is some sort of unseen, unspoken, spooky correlation between the extent of my excitement and the actual outcome of the game.

I'm sure you can understand my hesitance to get excited about Game 1 of the World Series, which is set for tomorrow night.  I'm hugely tempted to get crazy and buy a flag for my front porch and buy all of the Cardinals apparel I can find and get a red bird tattooed on my shoulder and talk shizz about the Texas Rangers to anyone within ear shot.  But I'm holding back because I'm terrified that I'll wreck it!  If my Redbirds lose, I'll never forgive myself.  Really.  So even though I'll try to limit my extollations of excitement, just know that in my heart, I'm on pins and needles with excitement!!