There is no need for goggles in a celebratory football clubhouse. Actually, it’s not even a clubhouse. It’s a locker room. There are all sorts of different jargon in the two sports that essentially mean the same thing. For instance, in baseball they have a clubhouse and not a locker room. Say locker room in a baseball clubhouse and they’ll look at you as some sort of rube.
Right off the turnip truck.
Meanwhile, Charlie Manuel is the manager and Andy Reid is the head coach. Call ol’ Chuck a “coach” and watch everyone laugh into their sleeves. No, it’s not exactly the most subtle way of embarrassing a guy in a crowded room, but there’s nothing about being in a clubhouse that’s friendly. A clubhouse is kind of like being a restaurant in that there is something about combining food and money outside of the home that makes people lose their minds.
Why do people act like idiots when they go to restaurants?
Anyway, clubhouses and restaurants are similar only there nudity in one and food in the other. There are also things like champagne and moonshine in one after a significant victory. In fact, every time they clinch anything in baseball the clubhouse gets covered up with industrial-sized sheets of plastic as if it were being prepped for a mafia hit. But like any good whacking, a celebratory clubhouse leaves remnants that typical polymers simply can’t cover up.
Though the goggles and the commemorative t-shirts and caps can offer some protection, there is nothing even they can do to mask the stench of a proper clinching throw down in a clubhouse. Besides, a good clinching bender takes a few days to come from, which is why they have so many days between rounds during the baseball playoffs. Sure, they say it’s because of TV, but come on… any party where they give out shirts and caps and cover up the room with big sheets of plastic is serious business. Guys need to take a break.
So when champagne-room veteran Jimmy Rollins stepped into the Eagles’ clubhouse… er, locker room… after the drubbing of the Cowboys at the Linc last Sunday, he must have wondered what was going on.
Didn’t those guys just clinch a playoff spot? Where was the plastic? How about the champagne? Why weren’t they dousing each other like a bunch of lunatics? Where were the t-shirts and caps?
They call this a party?
Well, yeah.
When the Eagles sewed up the last playoff spot in NFC in the 44-6 whacking of the Cowboys last Sunday, there were a few raised fists, a little jumping around and maybe some spilled water here and there. But then it was over. Guys stood by their lockers and calmly deconstructed the game for the local sporting press. They looked ahead to next Sunday’s playoff game in Minnesota. Sure, spirits were high, but no one staggered out of the locker room reeking and soaked.
Jimmy Rollins left with an official NFL ball from his pal Donovan McNabb, but other than that there was nothing different from that clincher, say, a game in Cincinnati during the middle of November. After all, there was more football to play, practices to prepare for, meetings to attend and film to study. Plus, there are more than twice as many guys on a football team which would require many more cases of booze and triple-XL t-shirts.
No, in football they leave the revelry to other folks. For instance, suburbanite Kobe Bryant chose not discuss his Lakers’ huge victory over Golden State a few days ago because he was geeked up over the Eagles tearing up the Cowboys. Instead, he asked reporters to ask him about the Eagles.
For the record, Kobe was in the middle of a champagne party at the Wachovia Center a few years ago when the Lakers took care of Sixers in five games in the NBA Finals. Yes, they spread out the plastic in the NBA only they save it until the end and not after every round.
Meanwhile, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie acted like a fan last Sunday with his playoff stubble and erratic and oh-so spontaneous high-fiving with his pals in his suite at the Linc. Mrs. Lurie got into the act, too, though she mostly was a victim of her husband’s reckless brand of celebration as documented on the Internets:
Still, there probably is no truth to the rumor that the gang in the Lurie suite rolled out the protective plastic, hid the china and got crazy with the Clos du Mesnil, 1995. No, the high-fives were enough.
Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Jimmy likes what he sees Meanwhile, the World F. Champion Rollins enjoyed the Eagles victory over the Cowboys and marveled at the fact that during the first half, “it was 17-0 for the defense.”
That’s a clever line from Rollins, but even more astute is the 2007 NL MVP’s read on the Eagles’ late-season rally. Then again, Rollins and the WFC Phillies know a little something about late-season comebacks and collapses from their arch-nemesis.
“Good things happen to a team when they believe in themselves,” Rollins said. “You gotta have determination every day. That’s what you saw on [Sunday]. Everyone knew how talented the Cowboys were – there’s no doubt about that. But what you saw was a team like the Eagles that wanted it more. They weren’t taking no for an answer and they weren’t going home. All you have to do is get to the playoffs and everyone is 0-0.”
Rollins was more impressed with the way quarterback Donovan McNabb regrouped following his benching in Baltimore last month. Again, the former MVP knows a thing or two about getting benched, too.
“Donovan is definitely a professional,” Rollins said. “Sometimes people get on you for expressing yourself and for telling what you feel is the truth. And there is nothing wrong with that. He’s not jaded, he’s not going to give you the answers you can get from everyone – he’s going to tell it the way it is. But what you saw in Donovan was a man who wasn’t going to quit on himself. He knows his talent, he knows how good he is and he knows how important he is to the team. He didn’t want to let anyone in that locker room down and they aren’t let down.”
Rollins very well could have been talking about himself, too.