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Show Thursday, April 19, 2007 Page 8 C 0 M M U 111 I Y OUTS. PEOPLE AND OUTDOOR FUN fo)n Utah County athletes add their Neil K. Warner I he line lo gel a lii caklnsl liurnto al lii'lci s is fl owing hv I he day If il works for I lah V'allcv Stale College ( atelier I )ernek Thomas, it might wot k lor you. At least that's the theory When Thomas Ixmht a hreakfast lMiinto.it theorem restaurant and then homeied the following altennxin, many 'n UVS( "s team lollowed Thomas to I'eto's. including Austin I leaps, who also got hot I he same time as Thomas. Now everyone's doing it Ix-s that sound suersti-t suersti-t ions'' That's i)i ihing II vou'i e wondering: where that oddly unpleasant smell is coming Irom, look no lurther than Tyson I ord's I eel When he's pitching well, the socks don't gel washed l.ver noticed that when it's game day, Spi ingville coach Will V ' InM only wi ites on the while hoard will) red and blue markers the school's colors'.' ()r wondered why he always puts two pieces ol gum in his mouth belore each game'' All. baseball supers! it ions. They have bei nine as much as part ol the game as ocning day rituals and the seventh-inning stretch I old. a sophomore at Salt Like ( (immunity College, doesn't w ash his Mirks il he pilches ell I le also maintains the same routine when he pilches, which includes rooming room-ing with the same players on the road, having a bowl of cereal lor breakfast and U'l'oi e pitching listening lo "I lere ( 'oines the Boom ' hv Nelly. The list ol baseball superstitions supersti-tions is as long Richie Sexson's swing and has more variations than an I I Ihique (aka ( h lando I lernande) curveball. Timpanogos' Krett 1ipez I aps the middle of the plate before be-fore every at -hat and he has to have his batting gloves hanging hang-ing out of his pants pockets at just the righl length. Timpview assistant coach Kyle 1 lannagan, who played al )rem, always ale a banana belore each game. In addit ion locating al Beto's. I leaps said he wore his cowlxy Ixxits on game day when he was in high school. Now thai he's at UVSC, he can't plav a game without eye black. Minor league pitcher Mark Trailer Accessories! Save! Heavy Duty Trailer Jack tooo ib a jt.sjj td Capac Trailer "D" Rings ta" $5.95 Q 58" $7.95 METAunart MtlAt AND MOf 181 South 1200 East Lehi it S Excavating Operated Equipment Rental Equipment Hauling SPRINGVILLE, UT 801-794-2880 Looking AMILY Richard K. Sharp, M.D. DrvCreek Fdinify Pr.icltte y J V We Accept Most i Insurance Plans One of the most common superstitions in baseball is making sure I'awelek not only avoids the base line, he hops over the line lictween home plate and third base when coming off the mound. When he pitched for Springville I ligh ScIkxiI, he always al-ways had pasta on game days. "Mark would always come home and eat pasta for lunch on game days instead of going go-ing out to eat or eating school lunch," said his father, Danny. "I don't know if il was superstitious su-perstitious or not, but he also never cleaned his nxim." The most common superstition supersti-tion is very few players will step on the base lines, but Spanish Fork coach Jim Nelson Nel-son said a college teammate made it a xint to step on the line. I le also had a teammate who had to step on first base (or third) on the way back to the dugout. While Nelson said he's not very superstitious, he did admit ad-mit he has a few rituals, and one of those is he always fills out the lineup card the night before a game. American Fork coach Janxl Ingersoll said when he played at Southern Lit ah. players on the team cut their hair, put it in a brown bag and then kept it on the steps of the dugout. At American Fork, Ingersoll has found his assistant coaches have their supers) il ions. "Ixis) year when we were Ready To Install - Hitch Receivers tt" & 12 $9.95 $11.49 Drilled - Painted - Save $ Trailer Couplers h west Prices W2 Miitg . Many Sizes Straight A-Fnme Stop in and browse! 768-3332 m ' " Dump Trucks Erosion Control For a Great DOCTOR? A . h , Dn. v own flavor to superstitious world of baseball winning, (assistant coach) Jay (Holmstead) wouldn't let us do any of the yard work on the field," Ingersoll said. " I picked up a broom to go sweep off the plate and he said, 'let me do that, last time I did that we won." " Timpanogos' Taylor Lyons says he dwsn't have any superstitions, su-perstitions, hut his team does. "Before every game, we pretend to take a bite out of a baseball," he said. "We then throw it up in the air and when it hits the ground, we all freak out." The team did it just before they t(X)k the field at Spanish Fork April 10 and it worked. The T'Wolves won 2-1 to open Region 4 play. While many baseball players play-ers have a few superstitions, UVSC pitcher Marcus Moore may have the corner on the market. "Most of the guys will tell you I'm the most superstitious supersti-tious guy on the team. I get the same number of glasses of water every time I come in (from pitching), which is two," M(xre said. "If we score more than three runs, I go for a third. I have two things in my pK.'kets for every game." What are they? Moore won't say; that would be bad luck. So why are baseball players OBODCHE IB METAL BUILDWGEECTO 801-367-4437 Licensed immnti 435-623-4606 I giUj ' 801-221-1031 J pllfliHigBffiffl in) not to step on f he baseline. so superstitious? BYU coach Vance Law, who spent 10 seasons in the major leagues, offers up his best explanation. ex-planation. "The only thing I can think of is there is so much down time between pitches. If you end up with a base hit, you have time in between to try and duplicate that. A player who gets a hit wants to try to duplicate everything he did right over and over again." During Law's time in professional profes-sional baseball, he saw plenty of superstitious players, but none more so than Wade Boggs. "He ate chicken every day. He would take the field at a certain time every day (5:17 for warmups and sprints at 7:17)," Law said. "Everyone was aware of them. He would throw three rocks into foul territory ter-ritory every game." Law said the most amusing example of superstition he can remember came when he was in the minor leagues. "The funniest thing I ever saw was a guy, who I can't even remember his name in Triple A, he had to touch you last," he said. "No matter what happened, if he was thrown out stealing a base, he would get up and pat the guy on the rear end. "One time he got hit in the !-Christ 1 N G E I. I C A L www.christev.org (801) 225-3038 Growing and Relocating! Now meeting at UVSC Sorensen Student Center Grand Ballroom. Worship Service at 11:00 This Week's Message: "Resurrection" I Insured I ASHLEY FRANSCELLNorth County head and was laying down on the ground and guys were touching him to see if he was okay and his hands were just working trying to touch everyone ev-eryone who had touched him. It was pretty funny." It's not just players who are superstitious; managers also have their quirks. "Tony La Russa (current Cardinals manager) would wear the same windbreaker over his uniform when we were winning and not wash it until we lost," Law said. "He also didn't like to have any trash on the dugout floor. If someone took a drink and threw the cup on the floor, he would sweep it with his feet to the dugout steps and kick it down the steps. Sometimes guys would throw a cup on the floor just to see him do it." Just as there really are some Tampa Bay Devil Ray fans, there really are also some players who don't buy into this superstition stuff. "I didn't believe in that kind of stuff. I believed that if I prepared myself good enough that I would go out and perform per-form good enough," said Casey Nelson, former BYU catcher and current UVSC assistant as-sistant coach. "I didn't really have any superstitions." But just in case, Nelson may want to step over the base line. Eeliu EnucATion WRQJ TOD'KE ON Vacation Help promote literacy in our schools! Here's how: 1 . Call The Daily Herald at 375-5103 and tell the customer service representative when you will be away on vacation. 2. Request that yout undelivered newspapers newspa-pers be donated to a local school. 3. Wc will automatically stop delivery while you are away and resume delivery automatically auto-matically when you teturn home. The undelivered papers go to local schools during the current or coming school year. SphUuj Sale, " XT , .1 . t f,l. I Now thru H'tm Spring Ahead to the Habitat for Humanity ' Restore! OUTLET PRICES on P New & Used Building Materials:1, Cabinets, countertops, Hqhtinq, doors, windows, St much Stop hibernating and spruce up your home for Spring! Habitat for Humanity 7779 South 1680 West, Orem COBB CONDIENorth County Mountain View's Jacob Parkinson, left and Lone Peak's Nate Fonbuena try to gain possession of the ball on April 12. Bruins run into 'Hale' storm in loss to Knights Jared Lloyd NORTH COUNTY With stormy weather bombarding bombard-ing the Wasatch Mountains Thursday Thurs-day afternoon, the Mountain View boys soccer team had a tough time overcoming the hail during their home game against Lone Peak. Make that the "Hale." Knight goalkeeper Brian Hale created a "no-scoring" zone around his goal, and even though the Bruins attacked with increasing increas-ing ferocity throughout the contest, con-test, he held firm. That gave him his seventh shutout of the year and his team a big 1-0 victory. See BRUINS, Page 9 Timpanogos completes sweep of Lone Peak Russ Lyman NORTH COUNTY Get him on, get him over, get him in. It's one of the most fundamental fundamen-tal strategies in all of baseball-and it's one Timpanogos appears to have down to an exact science as was displayed in Tuesday's 10-5 win over Lone Peak. The T'Wolves had five of their six lead off batters reach base safely, executed three near-perfect near-perfect sacrifice bunts, and had clutch hits to drive in runs en route to its third region win. "A key for us was we were getting get-ting lead off guys on base almost every inning and we were able to move some guys around," said Timpanogos coach Kim Neison. "If you execute, it just gives you chances to score and guys came through with those two out RBIs." In no inning was execution more critical for both teams than in the decisive sixth. Going into the frame, Lone Peak trailed 5-2, however, the Knights scored two runs before Max Harris came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. Timpanogos reliever Taylor Lyons Ly-ons got Harris looking at a curve ball for strike three to get out of the inning. "Just to make sure we got out of that with a lead was big," Nelson Nel-son said. Although the T'Wolves' lead was still intact, the momentum was beginning to shift in the Knights' favor. But not for long. Robby Carter led off the home half of the sixth with a hard single to left, followed by a Lyons double. dou-ble. Mitch Foster came up with the bases loaded and drilled a two RBI single past the drawn in infield. After Christian Stewart walked, Jordan delisle knocked in two more runs to make the score 9-5 in See T'WOLVES, Page 10 - "J Mav 5h to is tarn -$i-l' more! v y 801-344-8527 www.hfhuc.org .vIC (Call for directions and hours) I 3300 N. RUNNING CREEK WAY. ? LEHI i I, -IIP 00 ReSt |