I for one will be rooting for Chicago. Even if I attempt to be the bigger (wo)man and neutralize the Utley Factor, I’d still go for the Cubs. From what I can tell, lots of Mets fans feel similarly. In fact, in an extremely scientific Twitter poll I conducted on Monday, 47 percent of respondents (out of a total whopping 32 votes) are also for the Cubs. (The Jays came in second with 28 percent, 16 percent for Cleveland and nine percent for L.A.) It makes sense. We Mets fans have known droughts—and because of that, it’s hard not to have at least a little sympathy for a team that hasn’t touched World Series turf since 1945.

76 years (or 108 since their last win) is a long time, enough to make even the most rational-minded among us consider the possibility of some dark magic. And this is another tether between Cubs and Mets fans (and players)—superstitions galore! Of course, baseball in general is rife with superstition, but the Cubs’ long dearth of World Series appearances is probably the most famous curse still in action, (and in an interesting twist, one in which the Mets feature). Simultaneously, Mets players routinely top lists of performing the strangest luck-seeking routines. I’ve read a lot of weird, weird habits these past few hours, and rounded up some of my favorites here, but first—the curse:

Tavern owner Bill Sianis brought his good luck charm—a goat named Murphy—to Game 4 of the 1945 World Series at Wrigley. The powers that be let Sianis but not the goat in, declaring that the goat stunk, while Sianis in turn is said to have declared that the Cubs would no longer win. And they haven’t since, not the World Series, anyway.

The Mets are implicated, too, in the curse of the Billy Goat by a trio of Murphies—when the 1969 Mets performed the miracle of overtaking the first-place Cubs in a race to the World Series, it was under the management of GM Johnny Murphy. The team’s announcer at the time? Bob Murphy. Then of course there was 2015 Daniel Murphy, (who the Mets might argue is their own special curse). In the NLCS, though, Murph was MVP, hitting four home runs and batting .529 for the series.

The more you look at it, the more it makes sense that the Mets, and their fans, might believe in a little baseball magic. Starting with:

Rally Caps!

The start of the tradition is often pegged to 1940s Detroit baseball, but its more widely noted that Mets fans popularized the superstition. Fans at Shea in 1985 employed the rally cap in wide swaths, and the practice spread to other fans and the players themselves, most memorably the next year in the World Series, when Mets in the dugout turned their caps inside out in a tight 2-3 Game 6, at which point they of course did rally to force a Game 7 … and the rest is history.

Richie Ashburn

An original 1962 Met, Ashburn used to sleep with his old baseball bats.

Did it work? Ashburn’s magical bedmates weren’t strong enough to do much about that 40-120 team record, but Ashburn himself had an All-Star year—his last in the majors—slashing .306/.424/.393. He averaged .308 over his 15-year career with a WARP of 72.1.

Dick Stuart

Stuart, a ’66 Met, always chewed a piece of gum while going up to bat, then threw it out across the plate before the first pitch. What the hell, Dick—now the next guy’s gonna have that stuck to his cleat!

Did it work? Well, it wasn’t amazing (that’s what you get for littering!) In Flushing, Stuart batted .218/.292/.356, with a career average of .264 and WARP of 6.4.

Lenny Dykstra

A Met from 1985-89, Dykstra was known for changing his batting gloves each time he struck out.

Did it work?: Seems like it—the Mets went all the way in ’86, and Dykstra was a good hitter throughout his career, slashing .285/.375/.419 with a WARP of 46 (though, annoyingly, his All-Star years were all with the Phillies). His luck certainly ran out later though, off the diamond—maybe he should have thought about some gloves when he was out (allegedly) committing grand theft auto?

Turk Wendell

Pitchers are known to be the most superstitious players of the most superstitious game but Wendell really took it to the next level—a treasure trove of quirks. One of his more normal habits was to avoid stepping on the foul line, as many players do, though he was known to jump over it and avoid the surrounding dirt completely as well. He also chewed four pieces of black licorice per inning while pitching, then brushed his teeth in the dugout between innings. He wore a necklace strung with the teeth of things he’d killed. Instead of a 10-million-dollar contract, he asked that it be written out as $9,999,999.99 (to match his uniform and favorite number, 99).  Then there was that time we lost him in the woods for a while, and he came back with a giant dead mountain lion ….

Did it work? Well, maybe it helped him not get eaten by that mountain lion? As a Met from 1997-2001, Wendell had a 3.34 ERA over 285 games, slightly better than his career average of 3.93, and WARP of 3.1.

Oliver Perez

Perez also had a particularly distinctive jump over the first base foul line, one that changed in height depending on how good he was pitching that day.

Did it work? Eh. A Met from 2006-2010, Perez had an ERA of 4.71, with an overall career average ERA of 4.46 and a WARP of 8.7.

R.A. Dickey

Dickey’s pitching rituals aren’t particularly quirky (especially in the shadow of Wendell’s); he was most known around the clubhouse for taking a Jacuzzi, then a shower, before a start. At the plate, though, things get a little weirder. Dickey names his bats really bizarre, slightly Medieval names—some greats include “Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver” and “Hrunting.”

Did it work? I don’t know about Dickey-as-slugger, but a Met from 2010-2012 and a 2012 All-Star and CY Young winner, Dickey spent some of his best years in Queens, with an ERA 2.95. He has a career ERA of 4.01 and a WARP of 15.

Moises Alou

Okay, ew. I had read before that Alou chose not to wear batting gloves—badass. And read somewhere else that he’d taken to peeling the skin off his hands to avoid too much callous build-up—seems painful and/or painstaking, but fine. But apparently Alou’s additional trick for toughing up his skin while avoiding callouses was to piss on his hands. Jorge Posada was also into this habit, a maneuver that, the Wall Street Journal suggests, may not even make chemical sense. But sorry guys, for me the efficacy and chemical makeup of one’s urine is really a moot point; can’t we all just go back to talking about Jason Giambi’s shiny, slump-busting thong?

Later, as a Cub, Alou had a hand in the fateful 2003 Steve Bartman incident, in which Bartman, a fan in the stands, interfered with a catch that would’ve been the second out in the inning. At the time, Chicago still held a 3-0 lead, but Bartman’s obstruction was the first in a series of (yellow) snowballing mishaps. The Cubs eventually gave up eight runs and lost the game, and the next day the series. The curse of Murphy the goat, it seems, was no match for Alou’s pee.

Did it work? Well not that time! But overall, Alou was a great hitter. As a Met in 2007-2008, at age 40, he batted .342/.391/.507 with a career line of .303/.369/.516 and WARP of 41.

Pedro Martinez

It’s hard to believe that a Hall of Famer like Martinez would be into superstitions. That said, he invited actor and fellow Dominican Nelson De La Rosa, to the Sox clubhouse for good luck in 2004 during the World Series. De La Rosa himself was record holder, recorded by the Guinness in 1989 as shortest living adult, at two feet, four inches.

Did it work? I mean, hell yeah! The Sox broke their curse; Martinez is one of the greatest pitchers ever to have played the game. His numbers in Queens toward the end of his career, 2005-2008, don’t do him justice: his ERA was 3.77, versus the 2.52 across his 7 years in Boston, or 2.93 overall. Maybe, after a long and successful career, it was just his time. Or maybe Martinez really did need good luck from his buddy De La Rosa, who died suddenly in 2006.

Anyway, coming off a killer season, and with no Murphies in sight, I’ll put my rally cap on for the Cubs these next few days—only if they really need it, of course.

Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Although the Mets reaped the rewards of Piazza later in his career, they have certainly made good decisions in the waning rounds of the draft as well. Time will tell if Sandy Alderson’s crew can make similarly good calls this year, but at least they will know that there is precedent. The players here were all taken beyond the 10^th round and went on to succeed with the Mets, not other teams (apologies to a 12^th rounder from 1965 named Nolan Ryan).

No. 5: Benny Agbayani

Drafted: 1993, 30^th round
School: Hawaii Pacific University

It is somewhat surprising to realize that fan-favorite Benny Agbayani only had a five-year major-league career, and he was relevant on the Mets for just three of them. However, Agbayani had very good timing, playing an important role on the Mets’ 1999 and 2000 playoff teams and earning him the extra credit to crack this list over less interesting names like Dillon Gee and Ty Wigginton.

Agbayani worked very hard to make a name for himself in the Mets’ system despite being such a late draft pick. He spent 344 games in Triple-A Norfolk with only a couple cups of coffee in the pros before carving out a spot on Bobby Valentine’s club in ‘99 at age 27. He impressed with a .288/.379/.498 triple-slash, 37 doubles, 29 homers, and a .292 TAv during the next two seasons. Postseason play didn’t bother Agbayani either, as he hit .299/.420/.433 in 22 games, most memorably crushing a walk-off homer in Game 3 of the 2000 NLDS against the Giants:

Agbayani departed after the 2001 campaign in the three-team Jeromy Burnitz trade, and his MLB career was over following a season split with the Rockies and Red Sox. Nonetheless, it was an exciting time to be a Met, and this draft unknown sure found the spotlight.

No. 4: Jim McAndrew

Drafted: 1965, 11^th round
School: Iowa

A mostly forgotten righty from the Mets’ late ‘60s and early ‘70s ballclubs, Jim McAndrew never had the best of luck. His SABR bio by C. Paul Rogers does an effective job explaining his maladies, but the short version includes catching the flu from a flu shot at an inopportune time, a line drive off his finger, a pregame fly ball collision, and even a robbery. Oh, and his best seasons came not in the Mets’ pennant-winning years of ’69 and ’73 but in two of the mediocre Mets seasons in between. McAndrew earned his World Series ring though, with a 3.59 DRA and 1.9 WAR in the championship ’69 season.

Despite the righty’s misfortune, he did a fine job on the mound during his tenure, recording a 3.54 ERA and 3.45 FIP over six years with 10.4 WARP to his name. McAndrew’s best season came in 1970, when he posted a 2.80 DRA, 4.9 WARP, and threw nine complete games, three of them shutouts. After the ’73 season, he was traded to the Padres and saw his career end in June due to ineffectiveness. But, hey–he will always have that World Series ring.

No. 3: John Milner

Drafted: 1968, 14^th round
School: South Fulton HS (East Point, GA)

A hard-hitting first baseman and left fielder out of the Atlanta suburbs, John Milner mashed his way through the minors and made his MLB debut at age 21 late in the ’71 campaign. Given a starting opportunity about a month into ’72, Milner ran with it and hit .238/.340/.423 with 17 homers in 117 games, a .304 TAv that helped him finish third in NL Rookie of the Year voting behind teammate Jon Matlack.

“The Hammer” was a presence in the Mets’ lineup for the next five seasons, crushing 94 homers in his Mets career. He hit 23 in the pennant-winning ’73 season and followed that with a fine World Series performance against the dynasty Oakland A’s. Milner’s plate discipline was underrated in this era, causing his skills to be overlooked and the Mets to perhaps deal him sooner than necessary. Traded to the Pirates after ’77, Milner earned a ring in ’79 with the Bucs and retired in 1982 after a 12-year career.

No. 2: Lenny Dykstra

Drafted: 1981, 13^th round
School: Garden Grove HS (Garden Grove, CA)

“Nails” was one of a kind and the sparkplug of the Mets’ last World Series champion. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 314 players were taken ahead of him in the draft, so making the majors after was one of the numerous obstacles he faced. He really caught the Mets’ attention in ’83, when he stole 105 bases in 136 games while hitting .358/.472/.503 for Class-A Lynchburg. That put him on the fast track to the pros, and by the middle of ’85, he was up for good.

Dykstra’s best season in Queens was, of course, 1986, when he batted .295/.377/.445 with 31 steals as the Mets’ leadoff man for a 108-win season. Then in the NLCS, he had a .925 OPS and a key walk-off home run in Game 3. Dykstra homered twice in the World Series against the Red Sox, too, and the Mets won it all. In 544 games during his Mets career, he hit .278/.350/.413 with 15.2 WARP before moving on to another cult icon role in Philadelphia. The zany center fielder spent just four and a half seasons with the Mets, but he sure made them memorable.

No. 1: Daniel Murphy

Drafted: 2006, 13^th round
School: Jacksonville University

An old friend strikes again. It was a tough call between Dykstra and Daniel Murphy for the top spot, but “Murph” spent much more time in Queens while also capping it with a postseason to remember. It might not have featured a title as Dykstra’s did, but Murphy meant more to the franchise as one of the last Mets to link the Shea and Citi Field eras. Drafted as a third baseman in 2006, he spent a considerable amount of time trying to be an acceptable second baseman since the latter spot was occupied by Wright. He was never quite pretty there, but he made it work.

Murphy’s success obviously came from his bat. Over seven years, he hit .288/.331/.424 with 228 doubles, 12.8 WARP, and a TAv consistently hovering around .270. He earned an All-Star nod in 2014, but while reasonably well-liked, it was not until the 2015 playoffs that Murphy truly cemented himself in Mets lore.

The new swing. Six consecutive games with a home run. The complete dismantling of Cubs pitching en route to a .529/.556/.1.294 triple slash and NLCS MVP honors. Murphy had everything working, and it was amazing to watch, even though the World Series did not go as well. Although Murphy is a division rival now, those memories won’t be forgotten.

Photo Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports