'Pitching is what Phillies starters Aaron Nola, Kyle Gibson, and Zach Eflin do, but it is not what they are,' writes inkstainedretch
Number Two pitches with a rosary in his back pocket. Number Three broke his arm as a kid, lost baseball, but found himself. Number Four has a tattoo of praying hands on the outside of his left arm, a sacred memorial.
After his third disastrous outing, Nola found himself in his apartment in Philadelphia, frustrated and alone, baffled at why he suddenly couldn’t get an out and couldn’t get a break. It felt like every time a hitter made weak contact it wound up as a hit, and Nola kept pressing harder and harder. He realized, he said, that the superstitions didn’t get him to the majors, and they didn’t make him the money. God did. So, like Halladay, Nola began to worry about the next pitch. Not the bleeders. Not the bloops.
But no baseball player operates without routine. Nola still has the rosary. He keeps it in the small, grey pouch it came in; it was broken when he brought it out for display last week. His only remaining ritual: He prays the rosary -- a series of vocal prayers -- before every start, with the beads in his hands.Kyle Gibson threw 120 pitches and completed a seven-inning game in the season opener for his junior varsity team his freshman year at Cathedral High.
Gibson joined a youth group. He went on a mission trip. Before he knew it, baseball was coincidental.
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