the tindog coffeehouse

I don’t wear Texas Longhorn t-shirts on game day. If Texas is the home team, I use my burnt orange Longhorns coffee mug; if they’re the visiting team, I bust out the white one. Meanwhile, I do wear a Horned Frog shirt on TCU game days and opt for my Fort Worth-themed Starbucks mug the day before.

But really, I’m not superstitious. Even though I listened to the same mix tape before each football game in high school. (I don’t remember what songs were on there, but I’m sure “Eye of the Tiger” was one of them.) And even though I ditched my Texas Rangers Claw and Antlers t-shirt last night halfway through Game 1 of the World Series when the Rangers were down 8-2. (And changed my Twitter avatar, which I had replaced with the Claw after the Rangers won the ALCS.)

But I’m not superstitious, I promise. Even though our high school football team went undefeated in the regular season all three years I was there, even making it to the state championship my junior year. Even though after banning Longhorn shirts following 5 straight losses to OU, Texas has beaten the Sooners in the last 4 out of 6 games and has gone to the BCS National Championship twice (winning in 2005). Even though TCU was undefeated in the regular season last year, played in its first BCS bowl, and is undefeated and ranked No. 4 in the BCS so far this year.

But did I have anything to do with that? Not at all. I don’t really believe that the shirt I’m wearing or the mug I’m drinking out of could influence a football or baseball game any more than a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rain forest could cause a tornado in West Texas.

That’s just silly. Just as silly as avoiding black cats, believing a broken mirror could cause seven years of bad luck, or hotels not building a 13th floor. They’re all myths, urban legends, old wives tales. Nonsense.

But if you ask me what I’m wearing for the rest of the World Series, I can tell you it won’t be my Claw and Antlers shirt.