'Baby Bird' Holliday celebrates clincher with age-appropriate drink: water

NEW YORK -- Jackson Holliday knew it was coming. This wasn’t the first time he was the underaged player heading to the outskirts of his teammates’ champagne celebration. It occurred multiple times during the 2023 season at Triple-A Norfolk, where he was a 19-year-old helping the Tides win the International League title and the Triple-A championship.

Still only 20, Holliday couldn’t partake in any of the adult beverages being sprayed and drunk inside the visitors' clubhouse at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, when the Orioles celebrated clinching a postseason berth following a 5-3 win. But the veterans weren’t going to let the rookie stand there empty-handed.

In the far back left corner of the room, a bird bath fountain was appropriately set up by the Orioles. This was for the “Baby Bird” Holliday, as it featured champagne-style bottles of water, baby bottles and a youth-sized No. 7 jersey draped over the edge.

Coloring book pages featuring The Oriole Bird hung on the plastic covering in front of the lockers.

“I had something like that in Norfolk last year. ... A little bit different here. A little bit more organized,” Holliday said with a smile.

The accomplishment was also larger here. Holliday, who entered the season as the top prospect in baseball, is heading to the MLB postseason for the first time. He has played 57 games over two stints for Baltimore, helping the club withstand the absences of fellow infielders Jordan Westburg and Ramón Urías, who both spent time on the injured list before returning Sunday.

There was always little doubt that Holliday would end up in this type of celebration one day. After all, he’s the son of former All-Star outfielder Matt Holliday, who made nine postseason appearances during a 15-year MLB career.

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The younger Holliday dreamed of forging a path to those types of accomplishments with his own big league team.

“Growing up and being able to watch winning baseball for so long, I think that’s kind of the environment that I came to Spring Training and I was like, ‘I think this team has that environment of guys being super close and being super competitive,’” Holliday said. “To be able to be here and be a part of this is awesome.”

Holliday mostly stood out of the way early in the clinching celebration, smiling and watching his older teammates. But before long, they encouraged him to “pop bottles” of his own, so he took one of the waters -- with a label reading “0.0% alcohol for Orioles under 21” -- and dumped it toward the center of the room.

The older guys enjoyed finding a way to get Holliday involved, as well as seeing some of the others in their 20s celebrate a trip to the postseason so early in their careers.

“Looking back over my career, the moments where I got to celebrate, everything comes together in that one moment,” said 34-year-old catcher James McCann, the oldest position player on Baltimore’s roster. “All the successes you’ve had, all the failures you’ve had. The moments that you’ve had to pull together as a team. So getting to see these young guys experience it, their first year -- a couple of guys in here, experiencing it now back-to-back seasons and so early in their careers -- it’s giving them a hunger to get to this point every season.”

Holliday has that hunger. Especially for the 2025 season -- when he’ll be 21, after celebrating his milestone birthday this Dec. 4.

“Next year,” Holliday said, “I’ll be able to drink.”