The most powerful aspect of faith, no matter how it is based, is the amount of belief that lies within the person embracing the respective dogma. And, I am not knocking any spirituality, be it conservative traditional religion, or, well, belief in a box of liquified Tide. I mean, whatever works is fine with me.

But, I had to be amused last week, as so many others were, with Gino Castignoli and his hijinx? If you don't remember the name, Castignoli is the zealous New Yorker who is also a misplaced Red Sox fan.

He is also the construction worker who buried the jersey of Big Papi in the concrete foundation of the new Yankee Stadium, and as a result has caused an hysterical brouhaha fueld by an abundance of hysteria.

The Yankees paid $50K to extricate the shirt from the concrete laden in the bowels of their soon-to-be sanctuary. And, it took the crew five hours to chisel and hammer through two feet of concrete.

And, why did they not let sleeping shirts lay?

Well, according to Yankee president Randy Levine, "The first thought was, you know, it's never a good thing to be buried in cement when you're in New York," Levine said. "But then we decided, why reward somebody who had really bad motives and was trying to do a really bad thing?"

Whew! That is kind of a severe moral imperitive for a piece of cloth with some symbols buried under an aggregate by a prankster.

But, well, starting in this case with The Curse of the Bambino--which I thought had been exorcised by not one, but two World Series wins--we can point to a litany of wonderful and bizzarre superstions that occur in the baseball world.

Think, though, of Wade Boggs eating chicken. Or Turk Wendell jumping over the third base line and brushing his teeth in the dugout between innings.

Or, more existentially, think of Kevin Costner nee Crash Davis, mouthing director/screenwriter Ron Shelton's words, when he says, "A player on a streak has to respect the streak. You know why? Because they don't happen very often. If you believe you're playing well because your getting laid or because you're not getting laid or because you're wearing women's underwear, then you are!"

And, well, that is the very essence of faith, no matter how it manifests itself within us. That, if we believe in something strongly enough, it is real for us.

Which means there was something to The Curse of the Bambino, or Boggs and his chicken. I mean, were there not then just how come the Sox got burned so many times before finally winning? Or, well, how did Boggs garner his 3000-plus hits? Was it totally skill, or lots of skill and some luck? Or, was it just he found a rhythm and decided not to mess with Mother Nature?

So, in the mean time, the Yankees are going to file charges against Castignoli which will help. Since he worked at the park for only one day, as a laborer, I am sure he has a large stash of cash reserves he can dip into. Not to mention it will discourage folks from such a stunt the next time they build a new stadium.

As for Castignoli, I have to wonder what the hell he was thinking? I mean, could he not keep this secret for another six months or so when retrieving the jersey would have been prohibitive? Plus, because no one would ever really know if the jersey was there, the legend could have grown, properly, and we could have joyfully watched the results play themselves out.

As it is, The Yankees are auctioning off the jersey, and donating the proceeds to The Jimmy Fund. Which at least puts some good will somewhere though all this silliness.

Human beings. Sigh. You've got to love em'.