Rubber Chicken Man

That same year, Nats slugger José Guillén was struggling and apparently needed surgery. Kaufman gave him a serving of his Jewish grandmother’s chicken soup from a 19th century Hungarian recipe. “By the 7th or 8th inning, he was feeling better,” Kaufman recalled to a Post reporter. “He went in the game, and he scored the winning run.”

In the summer of 2014, the Nationals began a successful run to win the Eastern Division title. On June 11, Washington Post reporter Neil Greenberg wrote that they had "brought their record to 9–3 since fans sacrificed a rubber chicken. Yes, you read that right."

In May 2012, when the Nationals were a slump, Nats manager Davey Johnson was asked whether the team was "snakebitten" after several injuries. "There’s been superstitions, to change our luck and do different kinds of things. Sacrifice a chicken or something," Johnson replied.

According to a Topps baseball card issued for Rubber Chicken Man, in 2005 "a rubber chicken was sacrificed over the dugout and the team played over .500 after that point. The team likes the tradition, so every year he sacrifices a rubber chicken.

Hugh Kaufman (born January 14, 1943), better known as the Rubber Chicken Man, is a Washington Nationals baseball fan who can be seen at most games at Nationals Park waving a rubber chicken over the Nationals dugout to ward off bad "juju" or bad luck. Sports reporters writing for The Washington Post have written about his giving chicken soup to struggling Nats players to improve their play and that his ritual "sacrificing" of chickens often seems to precede turnarounds in the Nationals' performance. As an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency, Kaufman has repeatedly been a whistleblower, including matters relating to the Rita Lavelle convictions and the post-9-11 cleanup of Ground Zero.

Kaufman was born January 14, 1943 in Washington, D.C. where he became a fan of the old Washington Senators. He continues his father's tradition of keeping box score statistics of each game.