Celebrating Nothing

For a long time I have thought that participation trophies for kids who play sports, or anything else that involves winning and losing, are sending the wrong message. Kids are being rewarded for just being there, instead of learning that being part of a team has its rewards that go way beyond a hunk of plastic mounted on another hunk of plastic. As a result they do not experience the satisfaction of working hard to achieve a goal, unless you call having your mom drop you off once or twice a week so that you can stand around all season in order to be rewarded the obligatory hunks of plastic.

This seems to go all the way up to major league baseball. I rarely, if ever, pay attention to baseball anymore for reasons too numerous to discuss here. But once in awhile I will see clips on the news and the other night I saw a clubhouse celebration, complete with champagne (the adult version of hunks of plastic) after the Dodgers beat the Cardinals in their best-of-five division playoff series. Here are grown me celebrating like they had won it all. Sure they should have been happy that they won, but all this means is that they get to move on to the next round, which still isn't the "World" Series ("World" is a misnomer because this championship only includes teams from across the US and a tiny bit of Canada, hence the added quotation marks.) Did they really need to break out the bubbly for this? I don't think so, because I believe that this is just another example of a participation trophy. Sure they won something but, did they really? At the end of the seemingly endless playoffs, that will end just in time for us to watch Thanksgiving Day throwball (football) games, no one will remember or care who did what during this first round of playoffs. C'mon Dodgers. Act like grownups, smile, pat each other on the back for making it to the next round and save the champagne celebration for winning the big one.