Yesterday, my son said to me, "Momma, you know if you wore your Maddux jersey while he was pitching Monday night, he probably would have got that no-hitter."

Apparently, superstitiousness is hereditary;  like two or more athletes in the same family, like handing down a fondness for allegory, like a widow's peak visible on four generations. 

I also think I should have been wearing my jersey, but I was making Chicken Piccata with Penne, and Spinach sauteed with Lemon and Garlic as Maddux pitched another brilliant game.  I didn't want to get my jersey dirty, okay? And not wearing my jersey, I affirm, had nothing to do with his no-hitter being broken up in the sixth. Yeah. Seriously. Nothing to do with it. 

When I met my husband sixteen years ago, and the guy who was so into me morphed into a so-into-Sportscenter/"don't-talk-to-me-babe-Bagwell's-up"/"this-is-our-year-even-though-we're-in-last-place" kind of male sports fanatic who wouldn't sit if his team scored while he was standing, I knew what I was getting into. I was raised in a family where manliness was judged by knowledge of sports, teams, and players - where intelligence was measured by the ability to size up games and those who played them and turn that ability into a W - where character was determined by how well you handled losing.   So it was no surprise to anyone when I married a man who timed our wedding and honeymoon with the annual MLB All-Star Game.

(We were sitting in a seaside cantina in the sleepy little town of Playa del Carmen, Mexico drinking White Russians when Ken Caminiti was brought in as an alternate and hit a home run for the National League back in 1996, the year he was unanimously voted MVP).

So does that mean I drink White Russians every year during the All Star Game, out of simple superstition?

No. The honeymoon is over, Cami is gone, and I have been known to be pragmatic.  It happens.

But, superstitious I do admit to being - by birth, by marriage, by choice, I think (it's kind of fun, actually) so I will be wearing that jersey next time Mad Dog is on the mound.

If I were really superstitious, really really superstitious, I would refrain from stating that he will get that no-hitter someday. I'd be afraid that would jinx him. But pitchers like Maddux don't get 336 victories because of jinxes or superstition or things that are perceptions. There is something real there. Watch him while you can because he's one of the best pitchers of Major League Baseball -ever- and there won't be another like him.  On Tuesday afternoon, my husband conceded this - even though he silently agreed with me prior to Maddux's latest outing - because we engage in competitive banter for fun. If we can't agree on teams, we agree on players, and these lively conversations eat up the few minutes we get to spend together in between practices, games, appointments, and popsicle or homework crises. For us, this banter is the language of love (that and food, of course). There is somethung familiar there.

Superstition is defined on dictionary.com as "a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge, in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like."

Kind of like love.