BY SAM JACOBS – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
Like an epilogue for the vast MLB season, the new playoff format will be commencing Friday, October 5th. This year’s new format see’s 10 clubs make the playoffs. Adding two more wildcard spots and having them duke it out in a do-or-die one game showdown. As you add more teams, you ultimately witness more celebrations.
Prince said it best. “Party like its 1999”. In other words, party like there’s no tomorrow, have the wildest night of your life; or live today as your last. This month is the 30-year anniversary to when Prince dropped that ageless line.
How does this relate?
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Well, you must assume Prince’s seductive voice was rattling in the Braves locker room last week while they were popping bottles, giving each other beer and champagne showers, and celebrating their one game postseason berth. If you saw the footage, you would agree, they were partying as if it truly was 1999.
This new format has provided a bit of awkwardness around the league. It’s like when a friend gets dumped by his hated girlfriend from hell. Do you console him? Or pop the bottles and celebrate with him. Point being, you really don’t know what the right move is.
Cardinals pitcher and ex-Brave Adam Wainwright had some pot stirring words for his old club after witnessing those celebrations. “No disrespect to what they did, but I think we’re going to save the big pop for after we beat Atlanta.”
On the contrary, Chipper Jones had another take on the postgame antics: “Why take it away from us?” he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “Every time we advance, you know what? We’re going to celebrate whether you like it or not, whether it’s apropos or not. We’ve earned it. And quite frankly, we can afford to pop a top on some champagne bottles and some beer cans if we want to.”
Do you blame the Braves for celebrating this way? Let’s take into consideration a few key points here. The disastrous collapse last September marked them as the first team in MLB history to squander a lead of at least eight games for a playoff spot in September. Rewind that by just over a week, and they were sitting 10.5 games ahead of the Cardinals for the wildcard spot. Add that to the fact that it’s Jones’ last season, and that this playoff clincher came on a straightaway centre walk-off home run – I think that justifies the antics at Turner Field.
However you might take the back and forth comments, this has been set up to be an electrifying do-or-die game between the Braves and Cardinals in Atlanta on Friday.
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