Daily Inspiration Quote by George Herman

A line like this is a sly self-portrait: the journalist as rationalist, allergic to mysticism, who still can’t resist a tiny private ritual when the stakes feel high. “Only one superstition” is doing most of the work. It frames the speaker as modern, skeptical, above the rabbit’s-foot nonsense. Then the punchline lands: the superstition isn’t some occult charm, it’s baseball etiquette elevated into a talisman. Touching the bases after a home run is technically required, but everyone knows it’s also loaded with theater and respect. Calling it superstition admits that sports, even at their most rule-bound, run on magic we pretend not to need.

The intent feels double-edged. On one level, it’s a quip that flatters the audience’s common sense: of course the “superstition” is just doing what you’re supposed to do. On another, it’s a confession about how people manage pressure. Journalists, like hitters, perform in public; they file on deadline, they chase certainty, they fear the jinx. The line smuggles in the idea that professionalism itself can look like ritual: you follow the bases, you follow the facts, partly because rules keep you honest, partly because rules keep panic at bay.

Contextually, it sits in that long 20th-century American habit of using baseball as a moral language. The home run is triumph; the bases are humility. Even when you win big, you still do the small, prescribed steps.