![]() ![]() Baseball is the hardest game in the world to play, so excruciatingly difficult, in fact, that players will do anything to make them feel like they have a better chance to get two hits tonight off Justin Verlander or get Miguel Cabrera out in a key situation. But one of the clubhouse kids found some for me at a store, and I was as happy as could be." He laughed, but he wasn't kidding when he said, "And that first night, of course, I got a hit." "When I got to Atlanta this year," says Johnson, who began the season with the Royals, "they didn't have the flavored gum that I need. Oh, and Wendell would not step on the mound until his catcher was in a crouch. And superstitions remain as alive today as they were 20 years ago when Turk Wendell pitched without wearing socks and chewed black licorice every inning on the mound (and brushed his teeth after every inning). Johnson acknowledges that it is also "an oral fixation, to some degree," but after this many years, he is superstitious about it. He got a couple of hits in a minor league game a few years ago while chewing watermelon gum, so now it is his best chance to get two hits tonight. It is preposterous, of course, but Johnson seems to believe it, which, in the crazy world of baseball, is all that matters. ![]() When his team is batting, he discards the grape and replaces it with Super Bubble watermelon-flavored bubble gum because, he says with absolute certainty, "The hits are in the watermelon gum." You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browserīraves utility man Elliot Johnson always places a piece of Super Bubble grape-flavored bubble gum in his mouth when he runs on the field to play defense. ![]()
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