Believe what you will about superstitions and jinxes, but this can not be good for Red Sox fans anywhere.

Nooooo! Why didn’t someone just stab Terry Francona with a cocktail fork?

Last week I was in New York, walking around with a Red Sox hat while trying not to get jumped. You know, your basic day in the Big Apple. As I walked into a Starbucks, I noticed a new J. Crew catalog.

I didn’t have to look very deep to be horrified.

Right there - smack - on the cover of the August catalog where two young prepsters, geared up to move into a college dormitory (looks like BU kids) straight out of their vintage Land Rover jeep with mountains of books (we all did that, right? Mountains of books? Everyone liberal arts major needs theoretical physics texts from the 18th century!).

That’s not particularly important. I’m not overly defensive of BU. Terriers can fight their own battles. Here’s what freaked me out: Both of the models - one man, one woman - were wearing Red Sox hats.

What’s in a hat? Bad karma, for one.

This can not be good.

When a team has a dominant lead, what it doesn’t need is any bad hoodoo. And how can flaunting a team’s surging popularity - perhaps piqued by a surging divisional lead - help karma?

It can’t. Is there any wonder that the once humongous AL East lead is now, gulp, only five games? Five games! The Sox are within two bad series of a divisional tie! Are you kidding me? Why does this always happen?

One of the reasons it always happens may be because of the type of arrogance perpetuated on the cover of this month’s J. Crew catalog. Let’s just hope Banana Republic doesn’t catch on and have an eclectic hipster in a Sox hat next month.

– Cameron Smith