For All They Do, This Bud Is Definitely Not for You

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig sent a memo to all playoff teams asking that champagne not be used in clubhouse celebrations out of respect for the Sept. 11 tragedy.

The Arizona Diamondbacks, a very respectful lot, honored Selig’s request and after clinching a berth in the World Series, they cracked open a bunch of six packs and poured Miller Lite all over each other.

Randy Johnson received a beer shampoo, and while no one checked Craig Counsell’s ID, by the looks of Curt Schilling, it was a very tasteful ceremony.

In one particular tempered moment, the Fox cameras caught Arizona pitcher Mike Morgan holding the National League championship trophy and a can of beer proudly high over his head--the brew respectfully not yet popped.

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AS YOU might have guessed, the champagne people aren’t happy with a guy named “Bud,” who has spent much of his life living in beerland, putting a stop to the time-worn American tradition of baseball players spraying French wine at each other.

Allison Evanow, vice president of marketing for Domaine Chandon in Napa, said the wine industry is “indignant,” and that a “$3 six pack of beer from Safeway cheapens the whole experience” for baseball players, who should be waving $17 bottles of California sparkling wine in front of the Fox cameras.

There are pros and cons to the argument: For starters, keeping in mind that most baseball players aren’t very bright, if you put a bottle of champagne in their hands, they’re going to pour it over someone’s head.

You put a can of beer in the hands of most baseball players and they’re going to guzzle it to the last drop, which means we’ll have a lot more drunken baseball players in the mainstream than usual.

On the other hand, one of my daughters told me you can make your hair shiny by adding stale beer to your shampoo, and while that explains her shiny hair while she was going to high school, she has some other explaining to do.

Now I can see where champagne might be an incentive--Domaine Chandon sending 120 bottles to the Lakers to use in their championship celebration last year. Maybe that will spur the Dodgers to win it all, although I wouldn’t want to be around Kevin Brown with a corked bottle of champagne in his hands.

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LET’S STOP for a moment and reflect on our champagne-poor lives. Do you recall your wedding night? I know I do, but I don’t remember pouring champagne over my wife’s head, and I’m not sure Johnson or Schilling were any happier than I was.

We still have our little triumphs, but if I started spraying a bottle of champagne at her, she’d be screaming, “Are you nuts--do you know what this stuff costs?” and then we’d get in an argument about who was going to clean up the mess.

Maybe that’s why I have a hard time understanding this “to booze or not to booze it up” argument--which really has nothing to do with the Sept. 11th tragedy.

There is certainly something to be said about the clinking of champagne glasses on a special occasion, and while I have friends who think the clanging of beer cans is music to the ears, you have to wonder about grown men running around a clubhouse trying to drench each other with alcohol in the name of success.

I can’t imagine a worse endorsement of poor judgment for today’s teenager than what happened in Arizona’s clubhouse Sunday night. And Fox was there to document every ridiculous second--surprisingly leaving out the sound effect of popping beer cans.

If a baseball team goes champagne crazy after clinching a playoff berth, and then again after the first round of the playoffs, and then after winning the pennant and again after the World Series, we’re probably talking rehab for some players.

There’s no champagne in the winning locker room after a Super Bowl, and that goes all the way back to Commissioner Pete Rozelle in the ‘60s, who didn’t think it was appropriate, and made it league policy. All the way back to the ‘60s....

Selig came to the same enlightened conclusion for baseball in 2001, and while he’s keeping the cork on the champagne out of respect for Sept. 11, apparently there’s still nothing disrespectful about a good old-fashioned kegger. Now that’s the making of a tragedy.

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IT’S ONE thing to have Johnson and Schilling for four starts in the World Series against the Yankees, but too much to expect them to pitch four complete games, which puts the outcome on the arm of Byung-Hyun Kim.

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THE BCS standings have proven something we’ve known for some time: Most college football coaches and the media who cover the sport are clueless. Oklahoma is No. 1 in the BCS, right where the Sooners should have been all season after winning the national title a year ago, and remaining unbeaten this year.

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UCLA QUARTERBACK Cory Paus has been as responsible as anyone for the team’s success because he has yet to have a pass intercepted, which means he has accepted his role as a supporting player to DeShaun Foster and the Bruin defense. That’s the sign of a mature and poised young man, which bodes well down the stretch.

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I LIKE the fact Fox elected to go with old Dodgers Ron Cey and Steve Yeager in place of the SIMERS & plaschke Show Sunday night. Now when someone says it can’t get any worse than the SIMERS & plaschke Show, I know they’re mistaken.

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THE REALLY good one-liners always come from the e-mailers, in this case: NoPyrite: “Someone should tell USC Coach Pete Carroll the college team with the worst record doesn’t get the number one draft choice out of high school.”

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Dave:

“The more you rip the Trojans and praise the Bruins, the more intelligent you sound.”

By the end of the season I could be a Rhodes Scholar.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com