My Sincere Apologies to Jeremy Hellickson

I am not superstitious. Well, not normally. My rational mind knows that no matter how many times I eat plain pasta or sit on the left side of the couch, it will have no bearing on what ballplayers do hundreds of miles away. The irrational part of my mind has no idea of this so I continue to keep silent about a possible no-hitter and wouldn’t dare do something different in my routine that would break up a rally.

Apparently I do have an effect on ballplayers by what I choose to put on my computer’s background. In 2006, I remember very clearly that a Cubs victory would put them at .500. If they reached that said .500 mark, then I was going to “honor” them by putting something Cubs related on the desktop of my laptop. They did and I did. They proceeded to lose, lose and lose some more ultimately finishing with the worse record in the National League.

I’m a big Jeremy Hellickson fan. I love his demeanor on the mound and the way he never seems to get rattled. At the beginning of June he was 7-3 with a 2.64 ERA after a great start against the Mariners, so I put a picture of him on my desktop.

His next start was a bad one against the Orioles in which he gave up five earned runs in just 5.2 innings. Okay. Anyone can have a bad start.

Next time out, he went toe-to-toe against Josh Beckett, even out-pitching him through the first six frames. The game fell apart for him in the seventh as Kevin Youkilis hit a three-run homer. I was proud of Jeremy. He had pitched a great game. Certainly, I had no effect on the outcome.

In Milwaukee, he had a good start but he lost again. Ummm.

And finally last night, he loses for the fourth straight time. Amazingly, the Rays offense has literally done nothing when Hellickson has been on the mound scoring exactly one run in his last four starts.

So, I’m sorry Jeremy Hellickson. The wallpaper has to go. Never again will I try something so foolish.