My name is baseball, and I'm an alcoholic. Because admission is the first step to recovery.

Hi. I'm new here. I'm Andrew. Consider me Windows Vista to Larry's XP. I used to work with Larry at a law firm before he quit and moved away. Later, I was Larry's roommate after he wised up and moved back to D.C.

I'm now in law school in Arizona and have been graciously brought onto the blog.

Now that we've got that out of the way, Gene Wojciechowski brngs us this piece today on the "troubling" issue of champagne celebrations in baseball.

Commissioner Bud Selig can talk all he wants about the "phenomenal success" of the 2008 season, but make no mistake, Major League Baseball faces a crisis that threatens the very core of the game.

The high propensity of shattered maple bats that will someday impale someone? Prospects running over two people, and then fleeing the scene? Games played on the West Coast ending too late for Peter King’s preference? I bet I got it.

That's right, I'm talking about champagne celebrations.

Definitely. That. Wait, what?

Enough is enough. Someone needs to explain to the Tampa Bay Rays, even the Boston Red Sox, who should know better, that you pop the cork only when they hand you the really big trophy with all the pennants on it.

The Rays? Really? You’re going to pick on a group of guys celebrating that their team is doing something they’ve never done before?

Instead, big leaguers insist on dousing themselves for simply reaching the playoffs. Don't they realize that nearly 25 percent of the teams make it to the postseason? So it's not like you climbed K2 on your knees.

Not that it’s important, seeing how as it only furthers his stupid point, but eight teams make the playoffs. Thirty teams play baseball in the Major Leagues. I’ve consulted my abacus to determine that eight in thirty is 26.7%. Well, I guess that really what this does is furthers the possibility that Gene Wojciechowski never took a math class.

The Rays are the worst. They went all New Year's Eve when they clinched a playoff spot, when they finished atop the AL East (and a reported 200 bottles of the bubbly), when they beat the Chicago White Sox in the ALDS and when Evan Longoria completed a USA Today crossword puzzle. You can get drunk from second-hand bubbly in the Rays' clubhouse.

Clinch a playoff spot, never been done by the Rays before.
Clinch an AL East title, never been done by the Rays before.
Win the ALDS and move on to the ALCS, never been done before by the Rays.

I know -- the Rays had the worst record in the majors in 2007 and the third best in 2008. Until this season they'd never won more than 70 games. So you can't tell the Rays to act like they've been there before, because they haven't.

You just said the Rays were the worst. Seriously. Go back two paragraphs. You said “The Rays are the worst.” It’s cool that you’re consistently bad, it’s your shtick. But, it’s not cool that you’re consistently inconsistent.

But big leaguers keep wasting valuable champagne on non-championship moments. Equally disturbing is the sight of ballplayers spraying, sigh, lite beer. What's next, wine spritzers?

The Dodgers wasted more money this year on Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre than baseball players will waste on champagne celebrations, collectively, from 2008 to 3174. If you’re alive then, you are free to complain.

And if you're going to do the champagne showers, at least man up enough to skip the protective eyewear. I've been in those clubhouses lately. It's embarrassing. Players are wearing swim goggles, even ski goggles. Before long they'll be wearing wet suits or deep-sea copper diving helmets.

David Ortiz can play with an injured left wrist, but he's afraid of a little champagne spray? Big Papi is a big wussie. Champagne is supposed to sting the eyes. That's the charm of it.

And whose idea was it to erect these elaborate plastic curtains in front of the lockers? Nuh, uh. If a sportswriter has to get his clothes soaked while trolling for quotes during the postgame celebration, the ballplayers' civvies should be available for dousing.

You were just complaining about players being pansy and not wanting to get champagne in their eyes. Now you’re indirectly complaining about getting “soaked” yourself because Coco Crisp’s iPod is protected.

The madness must stop. Bud, are you listening?

No. At least not to you.