The ritual after big victories is long-standing and familiar. It calls for beer and champagne.
But the Dodgers have created a tradition of their own for the small victories that come along the way – and it calls for tequila.
For two years now, each time the Dodgers have won a series – something they had done for seven consecutive series before their current six-game losing streak put the tequila on ice – the players gather in the clubhouse, infielder Miguel Rojas recaps the highlights of the series, picks a series MVP and the players down shots of tequila (apple juice for any non-drinkers).
The ritual ends with Rojas handing his phone to the series MVP, who takes a selfie with all of his teammates behind him. Rojas collects the photos and shares them in a players-only group chat.
“At the end of the day, it’s baseball and it’s our job. But it’s just a game,” pitcher Dustin May said of the tradition. “Being able to take the little positives and have a little team talk after, put some of the exciting moments of the series on blast – it’s cool.”
The Dodgers are the eighth team that relief pitcher Anthony Banda has played for during a peripatetic major-league career that has allowed him to sample an assortment of team cultures.
“I was expecting something because any time a team wins a series there’s some kind of celebration,” the reliever said of joining the Dodgers early last season. “The drinking aspect of it was new because I don’t think I’d been on a team that did shots. It was more of a quick ‘Hoorah’ and then move on.
“What I like most about it is how Miggy Ro or whoever is leading the celebration will point out what was good, the highlights of the series. It seems like he’s very on point with a lot of it, because he never misses any type of deal. Like, he’ll talk about things like what Ben (Casparius) and Jack (Dreyer) did pitching out of the bullpen.”
The tradition’s origin story dates to May 2023 after the Dodgers swept the San Diego Padres in a three-game series at Dodger Stadium. They had taken two out of three in San Diego a week earlier, doubling their dose of revenge for the previous fall’s loss to the Padres in the playoffs.
Rojas and outfielders Jason Heyward and David Peralta were all new to the team that year and took note of how business-like the Dodgers were in the aftermath of a significant regular-season moment.
“We started talking. ‘These guys aren’t really celebrating,’” Rojas said. “We all felt like this team was all about business at the time and celebrating wins in the regular season would be too much for them.
“I feel like getting used to winning in the regular season was a thing for them.”
The three took their idea to the team’s established veterans – “the big guys – Mookie (Betts), Freddie (Freeman), Kersh (Clayton Kershaw), Will (Smith) and Barnesy (Austin Barnes), guys that had been here for a long time” – and pitched them on making “a little bit of a culture change.”
The tradition took hold and now includes other individual achievements that might otherwise get overlooked. The team toasts players who reach 10 years’ service time (a significant MLB benchmark that brings pension and other benefits), rookies who record their first win or hit and veterans who reach milestones – for example, Clayton Kershaw’s 3,000th strikeout and Teoscar Hernandez’s 1,000th career hit recently.
“It’s just a really cool way to recognize the good things that are happening during the course of the season,” Freddie Freeman said. “The ebbs and flows of the season – you’ll go through some rough times and then all of a sudden you win eight series in a row and you’re doing a lot of tequila shots.
“It’s more in our group. It’s not about anyone else. It’s just showing appreciation for one another.”
Both Rojas and Heyward are tequila drinkers and settled on a Clase Azul reposado tequila that comes in a hand-painted, decorative bottle. Third baseman Max Muncy foots the bill for the liquor (which can cost as much as $150 a bottle) and someone from the clubhouse staff is responsible for making sure the supply is always on hand. They upgraded the tequila for each playoff series victory on the way to the World Series title last year.
“The bottle kind of looks like a microphone because it’s got the little cup,” Rojas said. “So I talk about what happened during that series – maybe a guy hit a homer or moved a guy over. It doesn’t have to be big things. It could be the bullpen guys or whatever. Then we always take a selfie afterwards that we put in our group chat and we save it.
“Last year when we won the World Series I put the pictures together and I sent them to the guys – a lot of guys in that picture are without clothes on so it’s private. But maybe 50 years from now you’re going to look at your phone and you’re going to have all these pictures from an amazing 2024. We’re probably going to have a couple Hall of Famers here, so we’re going to have a couple pictures with them. I think it’s a pretty good thing to have.”
Banda said he finds himself flipping through the photos at night sometimes, smiling at the different faces. One of those future Hall of Famers, Freeman, acknowledged that the expectations that come with playing for the Dodgers can lead to taking things for granted at times.
“You can get into that habit. When I came over, that’s the way it was,” he said. “That’s the beauty of this game. New guys come in and you talk about it and you see how things are going and it’s ‘Oh, I’ve got this idea. Why don’t we try this?’ and the next thing you know everyone loves it.
“Every day we get up and we’re trying to get ready for that game and trying to win that game and you go to bed and you get up and do it again over and over. When you throw in a little wrinkle – hey, wait, we just won a series and this guy did this and that guy did that. I think it’s been really cool.”
