I am the Black Widow.

Now for some background:  In college, a friend of mine deemed me the Black Widow after several of the Memphis Redbirds players I had interviewed curiously started slumping.  But not only were they not getting hits, their errors increased. 

Female Black Widow spiders are known to be particularly dangerous, not only to people, but also to their male counterparts.  But the nickname isn’t derived just from a biology book–there’s also a baseball tie.

The name comes from The Natural.  You know the woman dressed in all black that ends up shooting Roy Hobbs?  Well, my friend calls her the Black Widow because she basically ends Hobbs’ career.

While I definitely haven’t shot anybody, at times it seems that my curse could send them into such a downward spiral that they don’t recover. 

Of course, I don’t do this intentionally.  I want all of these guys to succeed; and if I chose to interview you in the first place it probably means that you were doing well.  But now take a look at your stats…

I am the Black Widow.

All of that to say: I think a few of our Hawks might be tangled in my web.  After all, we are 0-5 right now with a team ERA of 7.74 and 12 errors.  Our hitting hasn’t suffered as much as I thought it had, but if you look at the individuals that are being affected by the Black Widow, the curse is quite apparent. 

Of course, I cannot name names…superstition is a nasty thing in baseball.

I have to work with these guys for the rest of the season; and I can’t be on their bad side.  Plus, I have articles to write which means interviews to do–if word gets out that I’m the Black Widow and you are doomed if I ask you for quotes, I’m in big trouble.

I’ve tried numerous times to apologize to the baseball gods and pray that my Black Widow curse is lifted–but it seems that I’ve carried it with me from Memphis. 

To the individual players I have cursed, the team as a whole, the Cubs organization, Hawks fans and front office staff–I am sorry.  I am the Black Widow. 

But at least now there’s someone to blame for the losses, right?