Superstitious Fans resolutely keep to behavior while team is winning!

from Michigan Live dot-com

Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland revealed last month he didn't change his underwear during the team's run of 12 victories.
Catcher Alex Avila reportedly hasn't shaved his goatee since mid-season. The Detroit Free Press reports pitcher Max Scherzer is so superstitious he won't even discuss his superstitions.
That players and managers sometimes have weird tics, especially during the playoffs, is hardly news. Nor is it especially shocking to report similarly odd behavior among fans. But with the Tigers now into the American League Championship Series, questionable grooming and hygiene practices are lasting longer than usual.
A Twitter user from Cincinnati writes, for example, that she blow-dries her hair during the fifth inning of every Tigers playoff game. She skipped her ritual during games 1 and 4 of the American League Division Series against the New York Yankees, and the Tigers lost both games.
Fan Pete Colburn of Portage wears Tigers pajamas every night during the playoffs. During games Paul Soltysiak of Grand Rapids drinks out of an old plastic cup he got from Comerica Park. Max Trierweiler of Grand Rapids is working on an impressive playoff beard.
Local sports psychologist Eddie O'Connor, who works at the Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital's Performance Excellence Center, said the psychology of fan superstition is based on a desire for inclusion.
“Particularly in baseball, which is known for its superstitions, I think the psychology behind it is really that, as invested fans, it helps us feel as if we have some control,” he said. “We really want to belong and share in the ups and downs with them. I think it's a way that we can participate with them.”
What he finds interesting is that superstitious people will stick to behaviors that demonstrably are not helping the team (see: most Tigers seasons) but which they are convinced are “lucky” because of happenstance.
In other words, O'Connor said, if a person happens to be wearing mismatched socks, and the Tigers win that night, it's this abnormal behavior that will stick out in the fan's memory.
“It's natural that if something good happens, you want to repeat it so you'll look at things and say, why could this be?” he said. “It's very common in the social sciences to say correlation does not equal causation, but we will mix those things up all the time. When it's raining, we all have umbrellas out, but if I open an umbrella, is that going to cause rain? No.”
There is trial and error involved. When Trierweiler went to game 3 last week, he figured his underwear had something to do with the Tigers' victory, “but then they lost game 4 so I gave that up,” he said.
Among fans, that kind of behavior is harmless, but O'Connor said he tries to stop players from keeping superstitions.
“Things like that are not really under their control and don't have any influence on their performance, so it really ends up being a distraction from things that do matter,” he said.