Anyone else feel that the post-clinch champagne celebrations feel scripted and rote by now? Like it's something that players feel obligated to do as opposed to something done spontaneously? Are you telling me that a guy like Nick Swisher couldn't, if baseball's social conventions allowed it, find a more interesting way to celebrate than by pouring bubbly on his friends' heads? I'm guessing he could break 50 laws of God and Man within an hour of the the game ending if given the chance. I haven't seen something truly spontaneous happen after a World Series since Wade Boggs got up on that horse.But alas, we get champagne. It's too much of a tradition now, much like the rather awkward and scripted jumping up and down in the middle of the field after the final out (note: did anyone else notice that some guys -- like Posada -- started doing little awkward hops before the dogpile because, well, they sort of felt they had to? Gave me a chuckle). There's nothing that can be done about it at this point.
The best we can hope for, I suppose, is that players at least act like its spontaneous and not cover the room with plastic and put on goggles or something. Wait, what? We can't expect that either?
Talk to an eye doctor, though, and you'll be converted to the pro-goggle side with the speed of one of Sabathia's fastballs.Fine. We'll let you have your little champagne celebration. And we'll certainly let you have your goggles too.
Champagne has a high alcohol content, high enough to damage the surface lining of the cornea, says Dr. Matthew Gardiner, director of emergency ophthalmology services at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. (For those medically inclined, the lining is called the epithelium.)
"A corneal abrasion like that usually heals within two to three days, but it can be extremely painful while it's healing," says Gardiner.
Now about all of that hopping . . .
You know what really bugs me? The commemorative T-shirts and hats. I know it's done as a money grab to sell them to the fans ("the same shirts worn by the Yankees in their celebration!"), but it looks horrible. Just horrible. I will give credit to the Yankees for removing the tags on the hats and shirts before distributing them though.
What I want to know is what's in it for the players? They surely would rather not be bothered. Is it written in the contracts somewhere or are they doing it out of some sense of obligation to management? Whatever it is, I'd like to see someone have the guts to just sat no next year and see what happens.
Loren, ALL the Baseball teams profit from the Licensing Agreement
for these products, the Yankees use this money for their
payroll for good players, other teams use the money for BIG
BONUSES FOR THE OWNERS.
THE YANKEES ARE CHAMPIONS OF BASEBALL....... AGAIN
If you think champagne is a threat to your eyeballs in New York, you ought to spend a week or two winery-hopping in the Champagne region around Reims, France; visit the crypt of Dom Perignon, father and presiding spirit of bubbly, and have a sip or two of free stuff at each of the two hundred or so private vintners packed in among the hills and villages of the area. We did that on several occasions - a dozen or so years ago, my wife and two young kids nearly got ourselves thrown out of a very nice little auberge for giggling too loudly and pelting each other with grapes - but I will tell you right now, the kind of blindness sets in after your fifteenth or twentieth consecutive tasting for which those goggles will do absolutely nothing.
I thought that maybe I was the only one feeling awkward about Posada feeling awkward.