Cal Raleigh’s Droop-Busting Bathe Has Charles Barkley Vibes
Apr 24, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh (29) walks to the on deck circle through the third inning in opposition to the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Obligatory Credit score: Jeff Curry-Imagn Photographs NBA Corridor of Famer Charles Barkley by no means performed Main League Baseball, however he probably would recognize the game’s weird-yet-practical tradition of superstition.
Particularly after listening to how Seattle Mariners slugger Cal Raleigh did his laundry this week to assist break a protracted hitless streak. Raleigh hit the showers, nonetheless sporting his uniform. On Tuesday night time, he went 2-for-4 with a stroll and three runs scored. Not being knowledgeable athlete makes it laborious to articulate the trigger and impact, however right here goes.
First off, let’s return about three years. Broadcasting the NCAA Males’s Basketball Match, Barkley earnestly informed an unintentionally hilarious story from the Nineteen Eighties that went viral. Barkley claimed that early in his NBA profession he used to bathe after sure video games whereas nonetheless sporting his Philadelphia 76ers recreation uniform.
Barkley mentioned he practiced this methodology, greater than as soon as, on nights with back-to-back video games when the staff was touring in an effort to save time and clear all the pieces without delay. Actually. It was no joke, despite the fact that Barkley’s story despatched the remainder of the March Insanity studio crew into stitches. NBA groups used to fly industrial, which might trigger a time crunch, at the least in Barkley’s thoughts, and you may’t play in a sweaty tank prime and shorts the following night time. Nonetheless, doing your individual laundry — whereas sporting it? It is laborious to think about Michael Jordan taking this sort of shortcut. The one solution to take it additional can be driving a convertible with the highest down via a automobile wash whereas sporting your NBA uniform.
Kenny Smith, whose personal NBA profession started not lengthy after Barkley’s, interrupted Sir Charles at one level and mentioned: “Trip. There is no period the place you probably did this. You make this up.”
It seems Barkley wasn’t making it up. And Raleigh’s story, whereas much less outrageous than Barkley’s, additionally might sound made as much as future peoples. Only a season in the past, Raleigh was an AL MVP candidate who hit 60 house runs and completed with the most effective performances ever by a catcher. Raleigh’s 2026 season hasn’t picked up the place he left off. Huge Dumper has simply been down within the dumps.
Additional, any ballplayer mired in a deep hunch can discover themselves on the mercy of well-meaning teammates advising them get away. Swing ideas. Psychological ideas. Different ideas, a lot of which aren’t advisable to attempt, or are even repeatable in public as anecdotes.
There’s additionally foolish, superstitious sort of ideas that you just discover in baseball when gamers wish to change their luck. Proper-hander Logan Gilbert supplied this suggestion to Raleigh:
Bathe in your uniform to clean the stank off.
Mired within the worst hunch of his profession and one of many worst in Mariners historical past, Raleigh resisted Gilbert at first — in all probability as a result of there is no precise relationship between how a uniform is washed and breaking a hunch.
Nevertheless it’s additionally true that no person actually is aware of how the universe works. Disrupting the pure stream of occasions and doing one thing out of order, even when it is unrelated to swinging a bat and getting successful, simply would possibly tweak destiny just a little. The nice professional athletes take issues into their very own palms. It is what Barkley did with the galaxy-brain resolution to take laundry showers when he did not should.
So, with Raleigh’s slash line dropping to .157/.238/.320 on the season, he relented and hit the showers with out getting bare first. Early outcomes the following recreation weren’t encouraging. Raleigh drew a stroll in his first plate look, however he nonetheless had zero hits via six innings — not counting a foul tip he took between the legs crouching behind the plate. “Did I bathe totally clothed for nothing?” he in all probability puzzled whereas resting on his knees for a minute, ready for the horrible ache to subside.
Undeterred, he stayed within the recreation and ended the futility within the seventh with a pointy single. The following factor to do is await taking uniformed showers to change into a development. Barkley apparently had no luck doing it within the NBA, however these athletes aren’t as gifted when dealing with superstitions. Raleigh would possibly create a brand new “put on ‘n’ wash” period in MLB, which might unfold throughout a number of sports activities if his slump-busting cleanse goes viral.
