Why, Clayton? Why did you do it?

You know full well that if you appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated you are jinxed. This is not some lame little wives’ tale or silly lore – it’s real. It’s even in Wikipedia, for crying out loud.

Sure, there are a few examples of athletes who overcame the SI Cover Jinx – but only a mere handful. Yet there are 89, count ’em eighty-nine documented cases in which the SI Cover Jinx actually occurred, many of which involve baseball players and/or teams – including the Dodgers!

How could you do this to us, Clayton?
(Photo courtesy of SI.com)

Out of the 89 documented cases of the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx in Wikipedia, here are the ones that involve baseball players and/or baseball teams:

• August 16, 1954: Braves third baseman Eddie Mathews is the first person to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The Braves snapped a nine-game winning streak, and a broken hand later caused Mathews to miss seven games.
• August 7, 1978: Pete Rose appeared on the cover the same week that his 44-game hitting streak ended.
• April 6, 1987: The Cleveland Indians, with Joe Carter and Cory Snyder, were featured in the cover with the headline “Indian Uprising”, and being predicted as the best team in the American League. While both men would have a good season, the Indians themselves would have a dismal 61–101 season, the worst of any team that season.
• September 26, 1988: Dwight Evans appeared on the cover and went 4-for-30 in a two-week span.
• May 8, 1989: Jon Peters of Brenham High School in Texas set the national high school record for games won by a pitcher, with a 51–0 record. The next game after the cover, he lost for the first (and only) time in his high school career.
  
• March 5, 2001: Nomar Garciaparra appeared on the cover and his off-season conditioning was detailed in the issue. The week after the issue hit newsstands, he would break his wrist, ruining his season and changing the trajectory of his career.
• October 11, 2003: In the midst of each league’s respective League Championship Series, both the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox were featured on dual covers to that week’s issue. Both teams would go on to suffer great collapses, as the Florida Marlins beat the Cubs and the New York Yankees beat the Red Sox; allowing the Marlins and Yankees to advance to the World Series.
• In April 2010, the “Core Four” of the New York Yankees (Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada) appeared on the cover, and within one week, all but Jeter suffered injuries. However, Jeter went on to have the worst offensive season of his career.
• In June 2010, Stephen Strasburg was featured and later that week earned his first MLB loss, and then was injured and was put on the disabled list. On August 28, 2010 it was confirmed that Strasburg would need Tommy John surgery and will likely be out for 12 to 18 months.
• October 11, 2010: David Price was shown blowing a bubble on the cover of the magazine’s Major League Baseball playoff issue, the Tampa Bay Rays pitcher had a poor outing in the first game of the 2010 American League Division Series, allowing 4 earned runs on nine hits, including two home runs  in a 5-1 loss to the Texas Rangers. Price would go on to pitch in Game 5 of the series and lose by the same score of 5-1 to end the Rays playoff run and season.
  
• October 24, 2011 – Outfielder Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated as the 2011 World Series began. The Rangers would go on to lose the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in 7 games despite being one strike away from winning the Series twice during Game 6.
• March 26, 2012: Albert Pujols was featured on the Sports Illustrated baseball preview cover. Next to the cover photo was the caption, “The game’s greatest slugger starts over with the Angels”. Pujols did not hit a home run with the Angels until May 6, 2012, in his 28th game and 111th at-bat of the season. Dating back to 2011, his regular season homerless streak lasted 33 games and 139 at-bats. Prior to 2012, Pujols had hit 445 career home runs, 32+ home runs in each of his 11 MLB seasons (including 37 in 2011), and 3 home runs off 3 different Texas Rangers pitchers in Game 3 of the 2011 World Series, tying Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson for the most home runs in a World Series game.
• May 23, 2012: The Los Angeles Dodgers (specifically Matt Kemp and Magic Johnson) appear on the cover. They held the best record in baseball (30-13) at the time and looked poised to sweep the 19-25 Arizona Diamondbacks who had been struck by injuries. They went on to lose to the Diamondbacks the same night in an 11-4 blowout. Ted Lilly received his first loss of the season. Clayton Kershaw lost to the Astros the following night. The Dodgers were then swept by the Milwaukee Brewers and then lost a series with the Rockies. They lost 8 of the next 11 games. Matt Kemp’s seemingly minor injury became much more serious and the team is expected to be without him for at least four weeks.

The Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx worked perfectly with this one.
(Photo courtesy of SI.com)

• June 11, 2012: Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton was featured on the Sports Illustrated cover. On June 15, Hamilton is hospitalized because of an intestinal virus.
  
• October 29, 2012: Detroit Tigers hitter Miguel Cabrera was featured on the cover and subsequently got swept in the world series while going 3 for 13.

Clayton, I don’t know what possessed you to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated the same week of your April 1st opening day start (or ever, for that matter), but if you do not win, you have only yourself to blame.

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Author’s Note: Yes, this entire article was written tongue in cheek. Clayton and the Dodgers will win.