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We’ve Officially Reached the Point of Idiots Criticizing the Phillies for Celebrating the NL East Title
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
Every year there’s some guy out there criticizing baseball players for excessively celebrating postseason qualification. Maybe I’m falling for some rage bait here, but this guy has 48k followers, so he’s indoctrinating enough people with his dumb opinions that it warranted a rebuttal to this video of him criticizing the Phillies for celebrating the NL East title. Not to mention, he clearly has no idea what he’s talking about with some of the facts he’s throwing out there:
First, the Phillies weren’t the favorite to win the NL East. They weren’t even the second favorite to win the NL East. Sure, the odds disparity wasn’t astronomical, but the billion dollar Mets were picked to take the NL East crown and the Braves were next.
Second, I’ll never understand people who get mad at baseball players for having fun when they clinch, and every single round they advance after. Baseball is a grind. I gotta imagine the reason that 162 is worth slogging through all of the takes, all of the ups and downs, and the dog days of summer is the fact you get paid well and the cold beer and champagne shower sits at the end of the rainbow. I’ll be honest, I originally thought the celebration was going to be subdued because the Phillies have made the playoffs now four straight years. I’m glad it wasn’t. How can you look at John Middleton bonging beers with the boys and not smile?
Not to mention, think about the young guys who’ve never experienced this before. Guys like Rafael Marchan and Otto Kemp. These guys deserve the full experience the way Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott, and Brandon Marsh did before. Just cause the Phils are used to being in the postseason now doesn’t mean you should celebrate any less than when you ended your franchise’s playoff drought. We’ve only won the NL East 13 times in our 100+ year history. I’d celebrate every chance I’d get cause it doesn’t come around often. What’s the alternative, to not celebrate? Then you’re just the 2022 Mets, who didn’t want to celebrate their playoff berth until they clinched the NL East. What happened? The Braves end up winning the NL East and they get nothing.
My only argument for people who don’t like baseball players celebrating is to SYBAU. Making the MLB playoffs is still the hardest thing to do in sports. Hell would I hate if the Eagles partied like this in the locker room every time they advanced in the playoffs last year? Absolutely not. We get great moments like the ones we had on Monday. Plus, it’s not like the celebration affected the Phillies last night anyway:
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com