During a game in September of 1882 against the Worcester Ruby Legs, Albert Spalding, Chicago White Stockings President, sat “in the reporters’ stand” at Lakefront Park with a sportswriter from The Chicago Herald:
“The Worcesters had gained a run in the fourth inning, but the home team had been successfully retired for five straight innings. The Chicagos were playing their best, but ‘luck was dead against them.’”
At that point Chicago outfielder Abner Dalrymple came to where the White Stockings’ president was seated and said:
“’Mr. Spalding, will you move other in some other chair? That was the seat Harry Wright occupied during the games we had with his club.’ Spalding laughed, but hurried out of his place to a chair further down the line. The home team made three runs in that inning and won—five to one.”
Abner Dalrymple
The reporter later asked Spalding about whether all players were superstitious:
“(A)nd he proceeded to explain some of the incidents and conditions supposed to influence the play.
“The players as surely believe that ducks or geese on the home ground presage defeat for that team as they do that an umpire can materially add to the discomfort of a nine, Dalrymple had great belief that Spalding in Harry Wright’s seat would throw all the bad luck imaginable on the Chicago side.”
The Herald said when the second place Providence Grays came to Chicago that same month, the White Stockings “thought that by donning their old tri-colored caps…they would defeat them, and sure enough, they won three straight games.”
Spalding said it wasn’t limited to his own team:
“(Worcester) Captain (Arthur) Irwin always spits on the coin he tosses up for a choice of position in a game. Jack Rowe (of the Buffalo Bisons) pulls the little finger of his right hand for luck, and all sorts of chance omens are seized upon by a club for indications of the great triumph they would like to win…(Terry) Larkin, now of the ‘Mets’ (the New York Metropolitans of the League Alliance), had an idea that he would get hurt some time for playing on Friday, and sure enough, in a game one year ago with a college team, he was struck with a ball in the stomach nd was so badly injured that his life was despaired of for a time.”
A.G. Spalding
The 1882 White Stockings, due more to talent than superstition, won their third straight National League pennant beating Providence by three games.
Baseball History Daily 
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