champagne celebrations in baseball (playoffs, ticket, wild card, win)

[Aldous9]

Right now the Pirates are celebrating with champagne because they won the 1-game wild card playoff. WTF??

I think the celebrating with champagne before actually winning the championship trophy is unique to baseball. I'm not opposed to it. But it shouldn't be after every series.

From 1969 to 1994 only four teams made the playoffs. So celebrating with champagne after winning the division made sense. Only four teams made it.

But now 10 teams make the post-season. Cracking open champagne if you qualify for a wild card or win a wild card game or win a series seems really premature. What did you win? Nothing yet.

So i'm proposing that champagne should only be cracked open when a club wins something. And by something I'm referring to the pennant and the world series. If a club wins their league's pennant they should crack open the champagne. They are going to the World Series. But if a club wins a NLDS series or qualifies for a wild card game they should not be spraying the champagne.

So i will recap. Champagne should only be cracked open on two occasions: winning the pennant and winning the World Series.

[sskink]

I feel that way about teams who make regular appearances. But if it's this year's Pirates, or hopefully soon, the KC Royals, I think you make exceptions. Been a long time. And as the Bucs didn't win the pennant or the division and there's no guarantee of winning the WS, given what they achieved, I'm not going to begrudge them a wet locker room somewhere along the way.

[Toxic Toast]

I do think it is strange to see teams popping champagne when they clinch a wild card or win a game like the Pirates-Reds last night. Buuuuuuuuuuut I don't care enough to think it should change.

[sskink]

Looking at it another way, what are you celebrating? You're celebrating that your season isn't over. Your work during the season means you're one of the few teams that get to keep playing. And anything can happen during the postseason so regardless if you're a WC or a division champion (and the Pirates have a better record than the Dodgers), you did win something - a ticket at a chance to win it all.

That used to be only two teams. Then it was four. Then it was eight. Now it's ten.

So popping bubbly once you've qualified for the post-season shouldn't be an issue. Popping champagne at every other juncture along the way to a WS ring... debatable. I'm not crazy about some team having five potential champagne celebrations. It gets boring. And stupid.

Not sure what you do about it though.

And I do think that even the Yankees would've popped champagne this year if they made the wild card. Because it wasn't a typical Yankees year or team. And I wouldn't have had an issue if they did.

[Aldous9]

I still think champagne should be popped on at most three occasions: win your division, win your league, and win the world series.

So that's 3 times for some teams.

I understand the Pirates haven't been to the post-season since the first Bush administration but they've already popped champagne twice (when they qualified for the wild card and last night, when they won the wild card game). If they go all the way and win it all they will pop champagne a total of five times. Half the team will have to check into the Betty Ford clinic at season's end.

[7express]

I said this in the last Pirates thread where someone complained about them celebrating: It's been 20 years!!! And they advance on to the NLDS. Give them a friggen break.