Is it just me or are others put-off by the amount of times baseball players celebrate victories with champagne spraying? I watched the Phillies and Rays this weekend win their divisional series, and the quickly bolted for the locker room to start spraying bubbly. Why? They haven’t won anything significant yet.
After a team clinches a division pennant, they celebrate with champagne. They win a divisional series, the celebrate with champagne. They win a trip to the World Series, they celebrate with champagne. By the time they would actually win something of very high significance, wouldn’t you think they’d be champagned-out?
This bothers me because it seems to be so much about hype. None of the other major sports have so many celebrations this way, and two of them (the NFL and NHL) even have trophy presentations for the team that wins their conference, and you don’t see them spraying champagne around. (Heck, I don’t ever remember seeing ANY Super Bowl winning team doing this.)
Maybe it’s a way to give these players an opportunity to do this since so few teams in baseball make the playoffs, and over the past two decades certain teams make it again and again (Red Sox, Yankees, Braves) leaving so many teams out. I love the sport, but this has bugged me this weekend.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Maybe it’s a rationalization - given avg MLB salaries - but baseball grew up as a working-class game, played by working class boys who were trying to make it out of their working-class towns. (Actually, probably more true even now of the n\on-American contingent.) And what was champagne? Why the epitome of “class”, “makin’ it”. MLB doesn’t have a Stanley Cup or a Lombardi Trophy, it has bubbly. And if it’s gotten a little diluted because of the extra rounds, it’s not bothering me; because it shows me those boys again.
October 7th, 2008 at 8:05 am
The class act was the year Steve Yzerman skated out to pick up the conference trophy, picked it up and skating off the ice with no celebrating making the statement we’re here for a bigger prize.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Scott, give the Phillies a break. They are a bunch of losers. They should celebrate ANY win with champagne! I agree with you for all the other teams.
October 7th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Took your advise…… Found a six pack of Victory - Moon Glow during my NJ travels today. Not cheap……$11.76 a six pack. So, I plan to enjoy 3 (Kathleen will get the others) this weekend.
Let you know,
John
October 7th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Good points, Roger. Never thought about that. Especially the comparisons to the Cup and Lombardi Trophy.
Yes, Uncle Steve, he did. But the first time (1995), he didn’t know what to do. He lifted it up like it was a big deal. It was Paul Coffey trying to tell him to just leave it there and head to the locker room.
Marcia, you epitomize the Philly fans’ attitude to a “T”.
Hope you like it John. It’s great stuff, believe me. And by the way, the price of beer is up for two reasons. Not only the economy which is pushing up prices of everything, but there was a bad hops crop.