The baseball player is Wade Boggs (p3ff) in Vyse’s book. Gmelch is mentioned on p 27 in a footnote when Vyse discusses superstition among sports. The article is called, ‘Baseball Magic’ (1974).
Best regards,
Richard Ramsay
In an email dated Thu, 2 3 2006 7:05:41 pm GMT, J Blain <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>There was a 'classic' anthropological paper by - as I recall - George
>Gmelch, on 'Baseball Magic', that looked into many dimensions of
>this, foregrounding the uncertainty issues, which had been at that
>time very well debated and indicated within anthropological theory of
>the era. Is this what is being drawn on here?
>
>Jenny
>
>>I've been trying to catch up on emails. This seems to toch on Stuart
>>Vyse's Believing in Magic. The psychology of superstition. He talks
>>about a baseball player using magic or ritual as it's an uncertain
>>world on the pitch.
>>
>>I suppose that one can undertake activities in a de-spirited sense
>>but isn't there a hymn (by George Herbert of Bemerton?) that says
>>something like,
>>
>>'Who sweeps a room in the name divine
>>Makes that and the action fine'?
>>
>>But I suppopse that here I'm onflating magic and religion.
>>
>>Best wishes,
>>
>>RR
>
>--
>Dr J. Blain [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
>Programme Leader, MA Social Science Research Methods
>Applied Social Science, Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield
>Hallam University
>Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheffield, UK S10 2BP
>0114 225 4413 07919 556371
>http://www.sacredsites.org.uk
>
>home address: 18 Lemont Road, Sheffield S17 4HA
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