Not walking under ladders and avoiding a black cats? Pure silliness.

And believing 13 is an unlucky number? It was my favorite as a kid and it still makes me laugh when I get in an elevator and see the floors jump from 12 to 14 (it's still the 13th floor whether they label it that way or not).

No doubt, when it comes to superstitions and cosmic sway, I'm a firm nonbeliever.

But the way the Colorado Rockies are making their way through the playoffs, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe there is something to this outside-influences stuff.

If ever there was a team of destiny, it's these Rockies.

How else do you explain a team that had been so bad for so many years and so mediocre for most of the season all of a sudden turn on a switch and start playing like the '27 Yankees?

What about the improbable three-run rally in the 13th inning against San Diego in a tiebreaking 163rd game of the season, the one where Matt Holliday scored the winning run with a faceplant slide and a fortuitous call -- there's no way he touched the plate -- by umpire Tim McClelland?

Even I'll admit there's something karmic about the once-sadsack Rocks, as if some force outside the lines is influencing the outcome between them. The run they've had, winning 21 of 22 games since mid-September, becoming the first team since the 1976 Cincinnati Reds to sweep the first seven games of the playoffs, is like a movie that's building toward a predictable ending: you just know they're going to win it all.

It's happened before. Just take a look:

_ Princeton, 1922. Undersized -- their average player was 5-foot-11, 185 pounds -- and returning just three starters, the Princeton football team became the original "Team of Destiny," thanks to famed sportswriter Grantland Rice, after the Tigers beat Chicago to complete an undefeated season for the Ivy League's last football national championship.

_ Washington Bullets, 1977-78. Plagued by injuries most of the season -- they played one game with the league-minimum seven players -- the Bullets won the NBA title despite some strange happenings in the playoffs, including the Capital Centre's lights going out during a game and Spurs guard Mike Gale wearing an inside-out Bullets road uniform after his jersey was lost in a luggage mix-up.

_ New York Mets, 1986. One name: Bill Buckner.

_ New England Patriots, 2002. Tom Brady gets a fumble back because of the "tuck rule" -- which just about no one had heard of -- setting up a game-winning field goal against Oakland in the AFC Championship and sending the Pats on to their first Super Bowl championship.

_ Boston Red Sox, 2004. The 86-year "Curse of the Bambino" ends after Boston rallies from 0-3 deficit to beat the rival Yankees in the division series.

And that's just a few teams of destiny; there have been plenty of others that have had that inevitable look.

Are the Rockies next? Sure looks that way to me. Then again, I keep holding out hope that the Oakland Raiders will someday become good again, which is as likely as my hair growing back.

But this thing called "Rocktober" sure seems to be headed toward a World Series title. Of course, now that I've said they're going to do it, the jinx is on -- if you believe in that kind of thing.

___

HYPER BYRNES

The best part about the Arizona Diamondbacks getting swept from the playoffs? We don't have to watch left fielder Eric Byrnes twitch around the field anymore.

Remember the kid who had the nonstop double leg bounce going under his desk from kindergarten all the way through sixth grade? That's Byrnes.

The guy runs around the field like he hooked up to a Red Bull IV drip for four hours before the game. I bet he goes through 9,000 calories a day just from twitching and probably doesn't just have the Jimmy legs (think Seinfeld) when he sleeps, but Jimmy body.

Then there's that throw from the outfield, where he does a front roll after releasing the ball. If that doesn't scream "Look at me!" I don't know what does. Problem is, now that the D-backs are done, we'll probably have to watch him and that trying-too-hard-to-look-wild hair on ESPN like we did last year.

___

LOOSE BALLS

This just in: Tony Gwynn will star in the sequel to "Fat Albert." ... Prediction: The guy from "Frank TV" will be working a cocktail lounge in Vegas within two months of his show's debut on TBS.

___

John Marshall is asap's sports reporter, based in Denver.

___

Want to comment? Sound off at soundoffasap@ap.org.