Hey, if you’re happy, enjoy yourself and don’t let me stop you, but really: champagne showers after winning the Division Series?
If you ask any Phillies fan -- and even if you don’t ask any Phillies fan -- they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms that the expectation is winning the World Series. If they somehow get beat in the NLCS, they will almost certainly consider the season to be have ended in disappointment.
In light of that, you’d think that Philly would be a bit more subdued with the bubbly than they were last night. They’ve really accomplished only a small component part of your expected goal, after all. Yet there they were, splashing around like Joe Carter just hit the walkoff home run. Well, that is, if they were the Blue Jays in 1993 and Joe Carter had just hit the walkoff home run, but you get the idea.
The Yankees did some champagne showering after their series win on Saturday as well. Most accounts of it had it being a more subdued affair than usual -- they sprayed the champagne, but stopped there and didn’t do the beer shower thing -- but still: will any of them be satisfied if they’re knocked out by either Tampa Bay or Texas? Will the season, ultimately, have been a success justifying a boozy celebration? I kinda think not.
I also kind of wonder about the whole history and dynamic of the champagne shower. I’m guessing it started as a spontaneous thing once upon a time, with some wiseacre middle infielder bringing in a bottle of bubbly or two in order to spritz a dour teammate. Now everything is supplied, the room is prepared and even if some players don’t think it truly appropriate to celebrate at a given time, they’re expected to. Maybe Roy Halladay, if he had his druthers, would prefer that everyone wait until they at least clinch the NL pennant. He can’t, though, because all that stuff has been laid out for everybody and that’s just how crowds work.
My view of this is that it’s probably OK to celebrate clinching the division or wild card. No, it’s not ideal, especially for a team whose playoff hopes were never in doubt, but the regular season, she is a long one, and a man deserves to let loose after six or seven months of work. But after knocking off the Reds or the Twins? Jeez, fellas, you were expected to do that. Act like it, whydontcha?
And if you think I’m being overly grumpy here: well, you’re damn right I am. Gonna be all day, thank you very much, and there’s nothing you can do short of giving Brooks Conrad an atomic wedgie to stop me.
