Put a Cork in It

The one superstition I picked up from being the parent of an athlete is that you don’t pack up the equipment until the last out is recorded; otherwise, bad things can happen.  I saw proof of that twice in the high school playoffs, the opposition assuming when it should have been attending to business.  Both times, Clare made them pay.

In freshman year, she singled in the top of the seventh inning with her team down three runs to over-cocky Riverside-Brookfield.  Four runs and three outs later, Morton won.  Then, in senior year against an even cockier St. Ignatius team, Clare hit her tenth home run of the season in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game, which Morton won four batters later with a walk-off single.  In the Riverside-Brookfield game, the players had merely committed the sin of packing stuff away.  With St. Ignatius up by two runs going into the bottom of the seventh, I overheard the parents wondering about the next game, who the opponent would be and where it would be played.  Since they didn’t win, it didn’t matter.

All of which brings us to possibly the biggest cliché in professional sports, the champagne-soaked locker-room scene after a team has clinched…something.  I’ll bet the Twins and Rockies uncorked the bubbly last week when they qualified for the so-called play-in game, and now they’re history.  And after each playoff series, the winners will no doubt spray one another with yet more champagne.  But in the end, only one team can have champagne and enjoy it to the max. 

Drink it too soon and you might as well pack away the equipment before the last out of the World Series.