The Nationals are in first place because of banana-and-mayo sandwiches or something

Nats in first place thanks to banana-and-mayo sandwiches

By Mike Bertha

June 9, 2014

Baseball players skew a little more superstitious than your average professional athlete (and so do the fans who root them on). Every batter has his little quirks and rally caps are commonplace when fans are looking for some late-inning heroics, but it's not too often you find a strong positive correlation* between a team's on-field success and the frequency with which its bullpen coach devours banana-and-mayonnaise sandwiches.

Enter: The Washington Nationals.

The Washington Post's James Wagner has the story of Nats bullpen coach Matt LeCroy and his, um, delicious(?) superstition ... the banana-and-mayonnaise sandwich.

"I always ate 'em and everybody made fun of them," said LeCroy, who spent parts of eight seasons in the majors, including with the Nationals in 2006. "It's just kinda my go-to when we needed a win. I just started doing it, and it took off."

More than thinking that they're helping the Nats win, though, LeCroy is worried that there's some sort of quota, so he rations his use of the superstition so as not to disrupt its effectiveness.

LeCroy is judicious about using his lucky sandwich charm. With the Nationals, he insists he eats the sandwich only on days when he feels they are in a rut and need a win. And when he does eat the sandwich, he eats only that.

"You can't go to it all the time," he said. "If you go to it too much, it doesn't work."

Hopefully they learned their lesson from Matt Cain and know better than to try to get all fancy and cut 'em diagonally.

*Stat nerds should be warned that this data is probably not representative of the true population