Los Angeles Dodgers Celebrate, and Sen. John McCain Explodes

Sep 19, 2013; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis (17) celebrates with left fielder Scott Van Slyke (33) and third baseman Juan Uribe (5) after beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-6 at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

The Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the National League Division Series in style on Thursday afternoon, with a big cannonball, or several of them.

The Diamondbacks were in danger of mathematical elimination from the NL West divisional race all series, and admirably gave the Dodgers everything they could handle until the final of the Dodgers 7-6 win. So the Diamondbacks had one polite request of the Dodgers when the highly likely outcome finally did happen–don’t party too hard ON our field.

The Dodgers didn’t. After the buys in blue celebrated on the field a little, went back to the locker room and celebrated a little harder. And an un-stealthy crew stormed out of the lockeroom, out of the dugout, onto the field, and over the center-field fence to storm the pool.

Here is the video from Yahoo Sports via Fox Sports Prime Ticket.

As an objective onlooker (which I’m not) and advocate of fun, what the Dodgers did is pretty awesome.It’s fairly unprecedented to celebrate in a pool in the stadium/arena. It’s also been a source of outrage for the Diamondbacks organization and their fans, chief among them, the very highly respected Senator John McCain. McCain tweeted late Friday morning

I am going to attempt not to overreact to what i deem as an overreaction from Senator McCain. But, relax Mr. Senator. Just because you talked with ESPN’s Jeremy Schapp earlier Friday

and you caught up with the Dodgers exploits from the previous afternoon doesn’t mean your accusations are right.

In order: Are the Dodgers overpaid? They are paid well, but overpaid is debatable. It’s whatever the market will pay them, and they just won the division, which is how we got started on this topic Mr. Senator. Immature? Yes Yasiel Puig has proven to be exactly that, but the young Clayton Kershaw and older Mark Ellis are about as classy as they come. Arrogant? We’ll accept that one since plenty of arrogance is required to be a succesful professional athelte. Spoiled brats? You hit that one right out of the park Mr. Senator. The Dodgers by all sociental standards of living are a bunch of spoiled, millionaire, brats.

Sports columnist for azcentral sports Dan Bickley, in his column which Senator McCain linked to, mythologized the 2011 NL West Arizona Diamondbacks celebrating in the pool as an organic and pure moment in time in sports history–like the first time anyone high-fived, and like 2011 was 60 years ago not 2. Admittedly very few people expected the 2011 Diamondbacks to win the division, and history is made daily and yearly in baseball (just watch Miguel Cabrera). But let’s not pretend jumping in the pool is a sacred tradition, like no one walking across the logo on the floor of a hockey dressing room. How many other fields have pools in them? (answer 2) And how many things have been won there or worth celebrating by jumping in the pool? This is about opportunity.

Senator John McCain, you are a respected and very reasonable politician by my unofficial scoring, and one tweet won’t change that. But Hanley Ramirez has never been to the postseason in over 1,000 games. Who knows anything about Yasiel Puig at all, let alone before June of this year. But if jumping in the pool was so special for the Diamondbacks in the hallowed year of 2011, I bet it was still pretty cool for the 2013 NL Western Divisional Champs, regardless of whether the opportunity was disrespectful or not.