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Defector Up All Night

It’s Not What You Want

6:09 PM EDT on September 29, 2021

Brewers reliever Devin Williams, seen here pumping his fist after getting an out against the Marlins in April.
John Fisher/Getty Images

On Sunday, the Milwaukee Brewers clinched the National League Central and celebrated their victory, as is the custom, by getting loaded in the clubhouse. Champagne was sprayed and beer was drunk. It was the sort of party at which at least some people were wearing stirrup socks and a majority wore protective eyewear, which is to say the sort of party at which something stupid was more or less guaranteed to happen. These are the scenarios in which soused front office buttheads crow about acquiring creeps and people deliberately mess up Tim McCarver's meticulously crafted hair. It is a baseball party, and as such the only rule is that it's going to be dumb as hell.

In that sense, it is not entirely relief ace Devin Williams's fault that he got frustrated at his own team's victory celebration, punched a damn wall with his pitching hand, and broke his hand in the process. In this reading, something that dumb or dumber was just going to happen, and while it is unfortunate that the Brewers' bullpen is now to be without one of its most effective contributors, this all transpired mostly because it was just Williams's turn to become part of his sport's storied heritage of party fouls. In another, more accurate sense, though, it is absolutely Devin Williams's fault that he did that.

Thanks for your continued support of Defector. I am now going to attend a Marlins-Mets game, so who the hell am I to judge anyone else's decisions?

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