Padres hoping for champagne celebration Sunday at Petco Park

The hats and T-shirts lay neatly folded inside boxes, hidden from players. Only clubhouse attendants knew what they were.

The gear meant to commemorate a postseason berth had arrived in early September, sent by Major League Baseball to every team officially in contention, to be opened in the event they were needed.

For a celebration.

Last year that celebration never came for the Padres. On Sept. 25, the day the Padres were officially eliminated in a 10-8 loss to the Atlanta Braves at Petco Park, the boxes were returned to MLB, per league requirements.

But now they are back, hats and T-shirts inside, imprinted with a new year and a new design and a new slogan.

This new Padres team is closer to actually getting to wear the apparel. With their magic number down to one, it is possible they could be putting the celebratory gear on late Sunday afternoon, at least long enough to pose for pictures before soaking one another in champagne showers.

Ah, the age-old tradition of hooting and hollering in the clubhouse, spraying everyone in sight with beer and champagne.

“It’s what playing in the major leagues is all about,” said reliever Craig Stammen, his eyes alight at the memory. “Getting to celebrate with your best friends, throw beer and champagne on each other. There’s nothing more exciting than that.”

Stammen has popped bottles three times — In 2012 and 2014 with the Washington Nationals and in 2020 when the Padres clinched in a 60-game season, though that celebration at Petco Park was muted due to COVID. (The last time they went to the playoffs after a 162-game season was in 2006.)

“Let’s just say this time it’ll be a little less like we’re walking on eggshells,” he said.

To some on the outside, the celebration might seem odd.

But it is, in fact, quite simply a collective exhale, having earned the right to try to scale another peak but a pause to acknowledge the one that has just been conquered.

The postgame party is unifying and reflective, said pitcher Nick Martinez, who experienced the playoffs in 2015-16 with the Texas Rangers.

“You’re kind of looking back at the season and looking forward to what’s next,” he said. “You’re living in every tense. It’s a celebration for what you’ve done, but it’s also energizing you for what’s to come.”

Making the playoffs is a triumph; even more cherished having known failure.

“It’s a sense of relief is what it is, that you set out in the beginning of the season knowing this is what we want to accomplish, then you accomplish that goal,” Stammen said.

Relief that nights filled with frustration hadn’t left them saying goodbye after Game 162. Relief that the eight-month grind through spring training, slumps, injuries and long road trips was not ultimately for nothing.

“For us players, what we went through last year — what we thought was going to happen and what ended up happening were two opposite things,” Stammen said. “So I think that mentality, that bad taste in our mouths is carried on to this season to where we’re trying to prove everybody wrong. It will be a sense of relief when and if that does happen.”

Pitcher Joe Musgrove remembers clinching with the Houston Astros in 2017.

“It’s only one small step in the big picture of where you’re trying to get,” Musgrove said, “but in Houston (veterans) made it a point to make sure that everyone knew you should celebrate this, that you never know how far you’re going to go or if you’re ever going to get back in that situation, so celebrate every step of the way and then get back to work the very next day.

“I was in my first year so I didn’t really know how to do it. I was kind of following what everyone else is doing. I remember I waited until everyone had a champagne bottle to make sure there was enough, then I grabbed my bottle and sprayed one and left it at that. It was fun.”

Some players wear goggles; others prefer the sting as alcohol hits their eyes.

“It’s more fun when you get burned,” Stammen said, smiling. “The burn is worth it.”

No one escapes without getting doused — coaches, clubhouse staff, athletic trainers, interpreters and really anyone in the plastic-draped room.

“It just kind of happens,” said Spencer Dallin, visiting clubhouse manager at Petco Park. “These guys have been through a daily grind from spring training on, so they all just kind of pour it on each other.”

Manager Bruce Bochy gets drenched with beer and champagne after Padres clinched playoff spot Sept. 30, 2006, in Phoenix.

(Tom Hood / Associated Press)

Now in his 28^th season with the organization, Dallin managed the Padres’ clubhouse in 2006 when the team won the National League West while in Arizona and celebrated in the Diamondbacks’ visiting clubhouse.

“I remember spending time with Trevor (Hoffman) and Brian Giles and (Ryan) Klesko and all those guys and you know, (Bruce Bochy) was our manager and it was just one big party,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, an outfielder with San Diego in 2006. “To win the division and to pop champagne, I’ll never forget it.”

To be ready for a clubhouse celebration involving approximately 60 adrenaline-filled players, coaches and staff requires preparation and a subtlety for timing, since most managers don’t want to discuss details until the berth is in clear sight. The champagne is already at Petco Park, chilling in a storage refrigerator. The goggles, sent by New Era, are tucked away in the clubhouse, with the commemorative hats and T-shirts nearby. Rolls of protective plastic were a recent purchase, as Padres clubhouse manager T.J. Laidlaw didn’t want to jump the gun but had to be prepared.

“I don’t want to jinx it,” he said.

Should the Padres clinch, it will be Laidlaw’s first time overseeing the party at the major league level, though he’s done it several times in the minors.

“It’s special,” he said. “You won something as a group, a team, a family. It’s not really about the champagne, but about the accomplishment.”

Still, there will be champagne. Lots of it.

Teams receive guidelines from MLB specifying the amount of champagne and beer they can have on hand. Anyone underage is not allowed inside the clubhouse and non-alcoholic beer must be made available as well. If the clinch is possible that day, the clubhouse staff — in the Padres’ case, a team of six — starts setting up in about the seventh inning. Plastic is hung in front of lockers and wrapped around televisions (but not laid on the floor because it gets too slippery). Couches are moved away from the center of the clubhouse, leaving a wide, open space for festivities.

A cleaning crew enters immediately after the celebration to work the champagne and beer out of the carpets, though the distinct smell remains for at least a little while.

“It’s a good odor,” Dallin said. “The kind you want.”

The tricky part is the timing. If it’s a close game, the clubhouse manager has to make a judgment call, and the call is usually to get everything ready — just in case — then yank it down as fast as possible if their team doesn’t win, before players get inside.

In 2007, Dallin and his staff put up and tore down the plastic three times — twice in Milwaukee and once in Colorado — when the Padres lost three in a row to end the season and eliminate themselves from the playoffs.

“I remember we had the champagne chilled in Milwaukee back-to-back nights, ready to go,” he said. “And on the second night, we had already unscrewed the wire on it. By the end of the game bottles were popping themselves, so we ended up leaving about 10 cases of champagne for the clubhouse guys in Milwaukee.”

If the Padres had clinched that year, they would have celebrated on the road, with assistance from staff on the visiting side. Should it happen this year, it will be in a packed Petco Park, in front of fans who have supported them all season — a far cry from the cardboard cutouts that witnessed their elation in 2020.

“I’m looking forward to it for the fans more than anything,” Musgrove, a San Diego native, said. “I know how long they’ve waited for a moment like this and how bad they want it.”

Players caution that they can’t think about a celebration when there is still a game to win. Nothing is certain and they understand the importance of not getting ahead of themselves. But for those who have felt the champagne burn their eyes and numb their skin, they can almost taste it again … and they can’t wait for their teammates to taste something else, too: Winning.

“If you don’t know what it’s like, you don’t really know what you’re missing,” Stammen said. “You realize this is what the big leagues are all about.”

Heilbrunn is a freelance writer.