Why baseball teams party so hard and so often in October

October Baseball Celebrations Have Their Own Rituals

Healfromzero.com – For successful baseball teams, the postseason is not a single finish line. It is a series of milestones, and each one can trigger another champagne-soaked celebration inside the clubhouse.

That tradition helps explain an unusual seasonal delivery received by the Boston Red Sox. Near the close of a strong regular season, one of the club’s kit suppliers sends 100 pairs of protective goggles. Another 100 pairs can arrive for every playoff round that follows, all the way through a possible World Series appearance.

The goggles are not merely decorative. In baseball’s most exuberant moments, players shake champagne bottles and fire the contents at close range. The liquid can sting badly when it reaches someone’s eyes, especially amid the noise, movement and crowded clubhouse spaces that follow a clinching win.

A celebration after nearly every breakthrough

Other major American sports also use multi-round playoff formats, but baseball has developed a particularly frequent party culture. NFL locker rooms are generally more restrained before the Super Bowl. In the NHL, superstition makes early celebrations far less common, with the Stanley Cup standing as the prize players focus on above all else.

In Major League Baseball, a team can celebrate after securing a postseason berth, advancing through the Wild Card round, winning a Division Series, and capturing a Championship Series before the World Series even begins. For a club that keeps advancing, October can become a continuing cycle of games, travel, preparation and revelry.

Tom McLaughlin, the Red Sox clubhouse manager, has been part of dozens of such occasions during more than four decades with the team. He remembers postseason celebrations as relatively modest when he began in the 1980s, when the playoff structure was shorter. The modern format gives elite teams many more occasions to mark an achievement.

His work includes obtaining the alcohol and preparing the space for what follows. Before a likely clinching game, valuable items, furniture, televisions and audio equipment must be protected with plastic sheeting. Footage from these rooms often shows walls and surfaces covered in plastic, creating an appearance that McLaughlin has compared to the “kill room” from “Dexter.”

Installing those safeguards takes roughly two hours. If a game turns against the team, staff members may have to remove the coverings quickly while still positioned on ladders. When a series victory looks likely, however, the preparation is essential.

“That first hour is intense,” McLaughlin said. “It’s crazy.”

Champagne as a playful contest

The mess is part of the point. Bottles of Moët & Chandon or Dom Pérignon can be opened, shaken and aimed in every direction. Floors become wet and sticky, while players, coaches, staff members and reporters can all become targets.

Former slugger Curtis Granderson described the scene as more than a traditional toast. In the rush of the celebration, champagne becomes the equivalent of ammunition in a lighthearted water fight.

“It’s very wet. It’s sticky. If you have like a paper cut or a scrape, it’s getting in there,” Granderson explained. “It turns into like a playful water gun fight. Everybody gets their ammunition with their bottle of champagne, and then you’re shaking it up to make it just amped up, ready to go. And whether you’re spraying it to hit the ceiling, hit a couch, hit a teammate, hit a reporter, do it to yourself. Everything is a target within the locker room.”

Being singled out for a drenching is often a compliment. A player who made a decisive contribution may find it difficult to complete a postgame interview as teammates surround him with bottles.

Steven Kwan experienced that after helping the Cleveland Guardians complete a Wild Card series comeback against the Chicago White Sox. Soaked with champagne as he attempted to speak, Kwan reacted to the cold spray with a mixture of protest and delight.

“I mean, no! God, no!” he gasped. “It’s so cold! I feel like I’m being targeted right now. I’m in the ring. I’m trying to survive, but this is a ton of fun.”

Not everyone drinks the champagne

For many participants, champagne is more useful as a prop than a drink. Granderson took part in an estimated 12 to 15 clubhouse celebrations during his career, yet he does not recall actually sitting down to drink much of it.

“I think I was mostly spraying it,” Granderson said. “It was around my face and mouth, so I tasted it. I didn’t actually pour it up and drink it though.”

He has kept some pairs of celebration goggles in his trophy cabinet, turning practical protective equipment into reminders of playoff success. Other players embrace the discomfort more directly. Granderson recalled former teammate Michael Cuddyer favoring no goggles at all because the sting represented what had been earned.

“A teammate of mine, Michael Cuddyer, he was the one saying you got to ‘earn the burn,’” Granderson said. “He would always go with no goggles because he loved the fact that it burned his eyes. Because, to get a chance to do that meant you were doing something well.”

Champagne is not always the only material involved. McLaughlin remembered a New York Yankees celebration at Fenway Park in the 1990s after a series win. Food, milk and yogurt joined the chaos, and the team even used a shower hose to add to the soaking.

“The Yankees of the ‘90s did not get cheated when they had fun,” McLaughlin said.

For clubhouse workers, the party creates a demanding cleanup between the end of the celebration and sunrise. For players, though, the disorder is evidence of advancement. Every round won offers another chance to put on goggles, open bottles and celebrate the fact that the season is still alive.