Sports
Former Red Sox player Nomar Garciaparra could not bat without checking his batting gloves. Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics will not get on the floor without patting his hands in the rosin.
The pro athletes have their pre-game rituals and so too do the Vineyarders.
For members of the varsity football team and the cheerleading squad, the superstitions are sometimes hidden, oftentimes underneath the jerseys, helmets and uniforms, but they are there nonetheless.
Martha’s Vineyard junior varsity players, fully prepared to face the Nantucket junior varsity team this Saturday, were frustrated by a late cancellation from Nantucket. Citing a lack of numbers the Nantucket High School announced it would not be able to provide a competing team. “Obviously we’re not happy at all,” said Vineyard junior varsity coach Phil Hughes this week.
The Nantucket varsity football team is a formidable foe.
There is one sure place to hear a cowbell: Vineyard football games.
Three years ago, the Nantucket bay scallop harvest suddenly more than doubled in size, from around 15,000 bushels to more than 32,000. It was the year the industry ate its future.
The following season the harvest crashed. The total catch in 2005-06 was one-sixth as large — just 5,500 bushels. It was even worse last season, when fewer than 4,000 bushels were hauled up, the lowest tally since they began keeping records 30 years earlier.