By With the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals wrapped up and the Milwaukee Bucks crowned NBA Champions, the team now celebrates their title-winning season with parades through Milwaukee, champagne showers in the locker room and fans reaching over barriers trying to get a fingertip on the Larry O’Brien Trophy. These sports celebrations occur on the court, in the streets, and all over the world as Bucks fans cherish their first NBA title in 50 years. While the Bucks and their fans celebrate for a much-deserved reason, and they are celebrating big time, it is the smaller celebrations in other sports that cause controversy and backlash.
Winning a game on a shot at the final buzzer leads to roars from the crowd and the team rushing the court to group around the game-winning scorer and mob them and drench them with their waters from the bench. The same thing happens when a batter launches a walk-off home run, and they touch home; their team brings out the bucket of Gatorade and pours it on them.
While basketball and baseball have 81 and 161 games left to play respectively, these games add up at the end of the season and can be the difference-maker when it comes time for the playoffs.
The reason this article was created was because of much smaller moments in sports. More specifically, when a pitcher celebrates any inning-ending play, like a great play on a lineout or a strikeout. Most recently, a scuffle nearly started in the New York Mets vs. Pittsburgh Pirates game last week. Pitcher Marcus Stroman of the Mets got first baseman John Nogowski of the Pirates to lineout to first baseman Pete Alonso of the Mets. Alonso holds up the glove and tosses the ball to a fan in foul territory while Stroman emphatically struts off after getting the big out.
Nogowski takes exception and begins to jaw at Stroman and the two collide, clearing the benches. No punches were thrown, and no one was ejected from the game, but this sparks a bigger conversation.
You can celebrate however you want and for whatever reason. Flat out, that is it. And in retaliation, you can celebrate even bigger after the other person celebrates after they celebrate in front of you. Celebration is a way to get under your opponent’s skin and a way to hype up your own team.
After the inning that Stroman had, I would be celebrating, too. For Nogowski to scold him for it is ridiculous in a game that the Pirates were already winning and would ultimately win. If you do not want the other person to celebrate in front of you, do not give them a reason to.
Stroman himself is one to be a showboat when he makes a great play or gets a strikeout he really needed. And that is perfectly fine, I have no reason to say or think I dislike it. If he continues to do it for the Mets or for another team in the future, he is doing no harm in it. If anything, it is better for the sport of baseball that he does what he is doing on the mound.
Hyping up any situation is so popular nowadays that you can hype virtually any situation to make it even more interesting and gather a bigger audience for it. Heck, NFL cornerbacks celebrate a play even if they had no part in it; the football could be five yards ahead of the intended receiver and the cornerback can take full credit for a bad throw. Is that bad for football? No, and if anything, social media managers can cut that part of the game and post it on social media to gather views and an audience for that player.
Other players in baseball have their own home run trots that other players mimic in retaliation or to pump up their own team. Fernando Tatis Jr. adds a little two-step as he rounds third base, and we all love Fernando Tatis Jr. Even Alonso has a new trot for when he demolishes a baseball to the second deck over the left field wall. Neither player is disliked by the majority of the league for it. All these players do is add more flair and fan fair to the game for everyone to enjoy.
To get even smaller, if any player reaches base safely, they usually turn to their dugout and do some sort of hand sign or celebration that the team throws back to him.
How about when NBA players drain a three-pointer from half-court? Are we to judge exactly how that player acts after it? If I were in that position, I’m going all out in my celebration because I could never do that in the first place and half courts shot are made in every game now from players like Steph Curry or Damian Lillard.
Even the benches can celebrate a big block or a monster slam dunk. They can go on the court, too, as long as they do not interfere with the game. The bench players can wave around their towels or their warmup clothes or even fall onto other players on the bench to show off how big that shot or block was.
In the NHL, a goal usually has all the players on the ice crowd around the goal scorer and follows that with that player skating through the bench players who give in a row of high fives. That scorer can celebrate however they want, too.
The last point I can bring up to my argument is, is the celebration going to ruin that player’s stats or performance? No, ultimately it will not, and it will not ruin the game either. Let the players do what they want to do on the field, court or ice, and let the other players celebrate when they beat them. Just do not rush them and try to start a fight.
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