12/21/24
October 31, 2010
Baseball Tries to Chill Champagne Celebrations: Major League Baseball has issued new guidelines for dousing your teammates with alcoholic beverages after a playoff series win. Champagne must be limited, a non-alcoholic version must be offered, beer and other types of alcohol are banned and teams can't bring the drinks on the field. "I think the celebrations are unattractive in large measure because they involve alcohol," former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent told the New York Times. "It's ritualized, and I think it's silly. ... The sadness is that no one thinks this is very important."
I don't think it's a big deal either, and Vincent's attitude is incredibly hypocritical given the voluminous beer sales at baseball games. Fox News said last night 45,000 beers are sold at each Rangers game. If the sight of baseball players celebrating with alcohol is too much to countenance, what about the sight of thousands of fans filing out the exits after drinking booze at the game?
posted by rcade at 12:24 PM on October 31, 2010
This is as bad as the prudes who called the authorities when the Reds' owners had the victory cigars.
If it wasn't for the situation with Josh Hamilton, would this even be discussed?
posted by jjzucal at 12:42 PM on October 31, 2010
Oh goody!!! Tea and cakes in the winning World Series locker room. Remember to keep that pinky finger straight out while you sip.
posted by Howard_T at 12:54 PM on October 31, 2010
Fay Vincent AKA Captain Buzzkill.
rcade: Yes, fans who've been drinking filing out, some of whom will invariably be driving home...
Howard: I actually prefer tea and cakes to booze:) But to ban teams from going nuts after a playoff win and spraying each other with whatever the hell they want too is just wrong.
posted by Drood at 03:43 PM on October 31, 2010
Yeah, I'm in the "this is hypocritical' crowd as well.
Truckloads of alcohol in the stands during the games, what's a few bottles of champagne after a handful of games each year?
I'm confident that Hamilton isn't the first recovering alcoholic to ever play baseball, why is he so different? There were those pictures of him in a bar last spring, so it appears the man knows where to get booze if he wants it. I seriously doubt being sprayed with champagne is what's going to knock him off the wagon.
posted by dviking at 07:39 PM on October 31, 2010
There is something to be said for trying to break, rather than reinforce, the "celebrations need alcohol" association that is so ingrained in our culture. Note that the regulations do allow champagne, they just don't allow it in unlimited amounts or on the field. The consumption of alcohol in the stands is also regulated, so where is the hypocrisy?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 08:44 AM on November 01, 2010
I'm all for the idea of not having to tie the booze into every celebration, but it is so obvious how baseball wants to appear to take a stand against this type of thing, but refuses to address the idea of fans guzzling beer because it means cash being generated. Beer commercials, beer sales, etc. are huge cash cows, and the reason baseball would never go as far as to stop selling it/them. As far as sales being regulated at games, that's a bit misleading. Any person who wishes to pay can swill enough to get themselves drunk as hell before any regulations kick in.
Send a segment of 20-some thousand people out into the streets legally drunk, but crack down on teams pouring beer and champagne after winning championships? Whatever.
posted by dyams at 09:03 AM on November 01, 2010
I have watched athletic teams douse themselves with champagne after winning championships all my life. I have never doused myself or anyone else with celebratory alcohol.
On the other hand, I grew up watching people drink beer at sporting events and now enjoy the occasional beer at sporting events.
If we need to break ties between sports and alcohol, a ban on selling it at games would go a million times further than making an issue out of playoff champagne.
posted by rcade at 09:05 AM on November 01, 2010
For the most part I agree with lil_brown_bat; I find little hypocritical in Fay Vincent's position. Further, for a long time now I have been put off by the "celebratory" tossing of the manager and the champagne showers (beer, here in Japan) precisely because both have become, in Vincent's words, "rituals"--that is, completely lacking the sort of spontaneity with which they started. Here in Japan it has gotten to the point that if a team anticipates clinching the pennant on an off day via a rival's loss, the players (and coaching staff) are usually gathered in the club house of their home stadium awaiting the results of that game. If and when the rival loses, clinching the pennant for them, they proceed out onto the ground where they ritually perform the manager-tossing (for a paying crowd), then carry on with the beer shower in the locker room--goggles and rain-gear on standby for those who desire them. And it is so obvious that they are "performing" to an expected script. Boring!!!!!!
posted by billinnagoya at 09:08 AM on November 01, 2010
There's something to be said for rituals. When the Dallas Stars won the Stanley Cup, I loved all of hockey's long-established traditions of how such an event should be celebrated. It tied my favorite team to the champions who had come before and the ones who would come after.
posted by rcade at 09:38 AM on November 01, 2010
And can we please stop cutting down the nets after advancing to the Final Four?! It's so wasteful.
posted by bender at 12:53 PM on November 01, 2010
I don't really think it's that big of a deal unless there's a player involved who either shouldn't be around alcohol (like Josh Hamilton) or is too young to drink legally. Then it should be up to the team to handle that situation respectfully. I don't agree with baseball telling teams how to handle these things, just like I don't agree with football leagues (college and pro) penalizing end zone celebrations.