No Beer in Boston’s ‘This Ain’t No Bar’ Clubhouse Doesn’t Mean Team Will Quit Drinking
Beers and baseball go together like bats and balls. Peanuts and Cracker Jacks. “Take Me Out To the Ballgame,” whiffed on this one.
And that’s just not for the fans, but for the players, as well. Last season, of course, the off-duty Boston Red Sox pitchers took it to a new, unacceptable level by acting like fans and drinking beer in the clubhouse during games on days they did not pitch.
This prompted new Sox manager Bobby Valentine to ban beer in the clubhouse, a reasonable move. But it won’t keep the players from drinking beer, because besides hitting, catching and throwing, that’s what ballplayers do – drink beer. It’s part of being a pro, and especially so in the “Bigs.”
There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. It’s been going on as long as the game has been being played. It even helped make a legend of Babe Ruth. The only issue is when it affects a player’s performance; many a people have wondered how much more prolific a career Mickey Mantle may have had if he had not shown up for so many games with hangovers. Then again, how great would he have been had he not torn up his knee when his cleat got stuck on part of a sprinkler in the 1951 World Series?
Players go out to bars after games, girls flock to those bars to mingle (and more) with them and this is quite acceptable behavior. Most of the time they don’t have to be at work until late the next day, they are young and they have plenty of money to spend. It’s part of the lifestyle, especially for people who are so frequently on the road.
The issue with the Red Sox pitchers was not the fact they were drinking beer but when they were drinking it. During a game shows they didn’t care what was happening on the field as much as they should have, that pounding down the Bud (or whatever brand they were consuming) was more important to them than than the game.
The fact that the manager had to create a policy in the first place to grown men, to professional athletes, is rather silly.
“We’re not here to drink,” David Ortiz said. We’re here to play baseball”This ain’t no bar.’
No, that comes later. After the game.
Play ball!
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