There’s a lot of weird little sporting superstitions and habits floating out there. Some people only step onto the field with their left foot first. Some have a “lucky” item of clothing that they carry with them everywhere and seldom wash. And then some cities refuse to play certain songs because of an arbitrary link to the opposition.
A bunch of radio stations in San Francisco have all agreed to not play Lorde‘s megahit “Royals” for the duration of the upcoming World Series. Seriously.
The best-of-seven Major League Baseball decider kicks off on Wednesday morning Australian time between the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City (wait for it) Royals. Though the ban might seem silly and arbitrary on paper, it’s not *totally* without merit. The genus of the song came after Lorde spotted a 1976 photo of then-Royals’ player George Brett in an old issue of National Geographic.
The move now opens up a whole swathe of darkest timeline-esque scenarios. Depending on which way the series goes, the ban will either be cited as putting the mother of all mozz’s on the team, causing them to capitulate in spectacular fashion, or it’ll be precisely the stroke of genius needed to get the team over the line, resulting in the visionaries behind it to be cockily heralded as the new Royals of San Francisco.
We assume that radio stations in Kansas City will be following suit by banning all They Might Be Giants tracks from the air. But that’ll probably be a little easier to accomplish.
Photo: Isaac Brekken via Getty Images.
