Phillies star of the game? Prepare to get drenched by Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh
Dousing players with water during an interview has become a postgame tradition for Philadelphia — and the kind of fun that has helped change the culture in the clubhouse.
Bryson Stott doesn’t remember exactly when he began dumping cups of water on players’ heads, or why he started doing it. At some point last year, it came to him in the moment, and he decided to run with it. The Phillies second baseman saw it as a way to reward the player of the game. While they were doing their postgame TV interview, he’d sneak up behind them with two cups of water in hand, douse them, and run away.
Now, it’s become a tradition. Phillies players expect to feel water trickling down their back during their postgame interview. Some have tried to resist, to no avail. After Nick Castellanos hit two home runs in a 4-3 victory over the Rockies on Saturday, he asked the interviewer to let him know if two suspicious-looking 25-year-old Phillies began to approach him.
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Sure enough, they did. But the interviewer didn’t mention anything, and Brandon Marsh and Stott proceeded with their flank attack.
“They said they’d let me know, but they lied,” Castellanos said. “They didn’t let me know. Terrible. Terrible!”
Last Wednesday, after a 5-2 road win over the Chicago White Sox in which Trea Turner hit his first home run as a Phillie, Turner put on the headset to do his postgame interview. Armed with water, Marsh and Stott came running up behind him. But Turner was expecting it. He deftly avoided getting doused, and slapped a cup out of Marsh’s hand.
On Sunday, Turner hit another home run in a 9-3 victory over the Rockies, and gave another postgame interview. This time, he wasn’t so lucky.
“He didn’t get away from us today,” Marsh said. “We made sure we got him. We got him for this time and last time. We didn’t miss a drop today.”
Said Stott: “We told him it’s his initiation.”
At first, Stott was hesitant to dump cups of water on veterans’ heads. He wasn’t sure how they would react.
“I thought they might turn around and slap me,” he said.
But if there was one player he was most worried about, from a reaction standpoint, it was his close friend, Bryce Harper. Stott remembered a game last year when Harper went 1-for-4 with a home run. Stott dumped the water and Harper turned to him.
“He was like, ‘Why the heck did you do that?’” Stott said. “And I was like, ‘Oh god, run away, real fast.’”
It was around this time that Stott decided he needed reinforcements. He decided to enlist Alec Bohm and Marsh, so they could employ a three-pronged attack.
“Three-on-one works better,” Stott said. “If Bryce wants to slap us, then he has three people he needs to take down.”
The younger players on the team — known as the Day Care — are not safe, either. Stott has doused Marsh before, and Marsh has doused Stott. Marsh, who is known for dumping cups of water on his own head before games, doesn’t mind.
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“It’s perfect,” he said. “That’s my shower. All I need to do is change and go home.”
It may seem like a silly tradition, but it’s moments like these that have helped change the culture in the Phillies’ clubhouse. There were times last year when the players seemed lifeless. Some of their own family members noticed it. Those days seem to be over.
“They keep it light,” Castellanos said. “Those guys like to have fun. They’ll find an excuse to dump water on anybody.”