September 24, 2009

Champagne on Ice

Shysterball, on the logistics of the champagne the St. Louis Cardinals got for their NL Central clinching celebration:

According to the game story, St. Louis "had 25 cases of champagne waiting in the clubhouse, but the bottles will remain corked for at least another day." Twenty-five cases? They got, what, 38 guys on the roster right now? Add in eight or ten coaches and trainers and such. This is a road game, so figure that front office staff is light: the GM, an assistant or two, random traveling secretary types. Being generous, we'll call it a complement of 60 people with the team, and then some random media guys who don't care if partying up with the team hurts their credibility. Tops -- absolute tops -- you have 75 people that could even hope to be shooting champagne over one another, though many of these people would never touch a bottle in such a situation because, really, it's the players' thing. Twenty-five cases of champagne makes for 300 bottles. I love drinkin' as much as the next guy, but ain't that overdoing it a bit? And that's before the beer cans you always see guys throwing into the celebratory shower. Oh, one more thing: The Cubs play tomorrow and the Cardinals don't, which means that they can clinch on their day off if Chicago loses to San Francisco. What the hell happens to those 300 bottles if they clinch while on a day off? Do soup kitchens take booze?
I always wondered what happened to all the champagne when a team, say, loses Game 7 of the World Series. They probably bury it along with all the "World Champions" T-shirts.

Posted by Stephen Silver at September 24, 2009 04:03 PM
Comments

My thoughts are - most of the champagne is "pilfered" by non-essential staff. Everyone goes home with a bottle or two (All the way down to the ground crew) regardless of the place where they clinch everyone is happy home and away (unless of course the other team was who got left out of the dance).

It's a long season, and a bottle of champagne to a cog in the gears of a team probably goes a long way.

Posted by: Jeff S at September 25, 2009 03:04 PM

The wrong team's "World champions" gear ends up donated to sub-saharan Africa. Seriously. Look it up.

Posted by: LilB at September 26, 2009 03:48 PM

http://www.louisvuittonshopsale.com

Posted by: v at May 28, 2011 05:35 AM
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