UVSC catcher Derrick Thomas ate a breakfast burrito at Beto's and hit a home run the next day. Now some of his teammates are going to the Orem restaurant, too, including Austin Heaps, whose hitting got hot about the same time. Superstitionfi Of course. It's a time-honored part of baseball.

SPRINGVILLE HIGH SCHOOL COACH Willy Child only writes on the white board with red and blue markers -- the school's colors -- and puts two pieces of gum in his mouth before each game.

If he's pitching well, Tyson Ford of Salt Lake Community College doesn't wash his socks.

Superstitions have become as much a part of the game as opening day and seventh-inning stretches. The list of rituals and routines is as long a Seattle Mariners' Richie Sexson's swing and comes with more variations than a curveball from El Duque (aka Orlando Hernandez) of the Mets.

Ford, the Salt Lake pitcher with the stinky socks, follows some other rituals, too -- and he follows them exactly when he's lined up to pitch. He rooms with the same players on the road, eats a bowl of cereal for breakfast and before pitching listens to "Here Comes the Boom" by Nelly.

Professional players are as superstitious as anybody else. During BYU coach Vance Law's time in the Major Leagues, he saw plenty of them, with none more superstitious than Wade Boggs.

"He ate chicken every day. He would take the field at a certain time every day (5:17 for warm-ups and would run sprints at 7:17)," Law said. "Everyone was aware of it. He would throw three rocks into foul territory every game."

Law said the most amusing example of superstition came when he was in the Minors.

"The funniest thing I ever saw was a guy, who I can't even remember 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 head and was laying down on the ground and guys were touching him to see if he was OK. And his hands were just working trying to touch everyone who had touched him. It was pretty funny."

It's not just players. 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."

Minor league pitcher Mark Pawelek not only avoids the base line, he hops over the line between home plate and third base when coming off the mound. And when he pitched for Springville High School, he always ate pasta on game days.

"Mark would always come home and eat pasta for lunch on game days instead of going out to eat or eating at school lunch," said his father, Danny. "I don't know if it was superstitious or not, but he also never cleaned his room."

Not stepping on base lines is a common superstition.

But Spanish Fork High School coach Jim Nelson said a college teammate made it a point to do the opposite. He wanted to step on the line. He also had a teammate who had to step on first or third base on the way back to the dugout.

While Nelson said he's not very superstitious, he admits he has a few. One of those is he always fills out the lineup card the night before a game.

American Fork coach Jarod Ingersoll said that when he played in college at Southern Utah, players on the team would cut their hair, put it in a brown bag and keep it on the steps of the dugout.

These days he finds that his assistant coaches have their superstitions. Last year when the team was winning, assistant coach Jay Holmstead wouldn't let Ingersoll sweep the plate because the team had won the last time when Holmstead himself cleared the plate.

In the minority, Timpanogos' Taylor Lyons says he doesn't have any superstitions. But that doesn't stop his players.

"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 took the field at Spanish Fork on Tuesday and it worked. The T'Wolves won 2-1 to open Region 4 play.

On the other end of the spectrum from Lyons is UVSC pitcher Marcus Moore.

"Most of the guys will tell you I'm the most superstitious guy on the team. I get the same number of glasses of water every time I come in (from pitching), which is two," Moore said. "If we score more than three runs, I go for a third. I have two things in my pockets for every game."

What's in therefi Moore won't say. That would be bad luck.

So why are baseball players so superstitiousfi

BYU coach Law, who spent 10 seasons in the Majors, offers his best explanation.

"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 inbetween to try and duplicate that. A player who gets a hit wants to try to duplicate everything he did right over and over again."

And just as there really are some Tampa Bay Devil Ray fans, there also really are 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 good enough," said Casey Nelson, former BYU catcher and current UVSC assistant coach. "I didn't really have any superstitions."

But just in case, Nelson may want to step over the base line.

Some other local superstitions:

Timpanogos's Brett Lopez taps the middle of the plate before every at-bat. He also has to have his batting gloves hanging out of his pant pockets at just the right length.

Timpview assistant coach Kyle Flannagan, who played at Orem, always ate a banana before each game.

While in high school, UVSC's Austin Heaps wore his cowboy boots on game day. Now, he can't play a game without wearing eye black.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.