dangerous celebrations

I'm no fun - never have been. 

That being said, I'd like to express my dismay at how baseball teams celebrate game-winning hits. They're dangerous! Take the Oakland A's for example. They are leading the league right now in game-winning hits with 9 after last night's walk-off home run by Brandon Hicks in the bottom of the 9th.

How does the team celebrate? Besides the usual jumping up and down at the plate and the pounding administered by teammates, which is par for the course for most teams, the A's have made it mandatory to dump the contents of one, if not two, Gatorade containers on the hero while he is giving his post-game interview for television. Which is immediately followed by a 'pie-in-the-face.' At least I understand they are using whipping cream instead of shaving cream now. Understandably, shaving cream is painful and perhaps even a hazard when it gets in one's eyes and most certainly tastes gosh-awful if it gets in the mouth. 

But what I am most worried about is the overturning of the Gatorade container when it is being dumped. What I have been fearing all these years, whether it is that dumb tradition used at the end of big victories in football, or in baseball, happened: the container itself actually hit the athlete as he was being splashed. Of course, contact like that is inadvertent, but it's still a risk. Hicks in this case was unfazed, but one of these days, it's going to actually hurt someone. 

Speaking of stupidly dangerous celebrations, and switching once again to football, I remember a big college game that I was excited to watch. Ted Ginn, Jr. was the player I was looking forward to seeing and he made a fantastic touchdown scoring return early in the game, which all the fans were anticipating. And what do his teammates do to celebrate? They mob him in the endzone, jump up and down on top of him, and end up injuring him... badly enough that he has to leave the game. So much for watching Ted Ginn, Jr. that day.

Yup, stupid and dangerous. Reckless. Don't like it.