For a few precious hours, the rigors of a demanding season were forgotten as the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks sprayed one another with bottle after bottle of beer.
Outfielder Seiichi Uchikawa doused a reporter as he was being interviewed, a group of players emptied the contents of several bottles onto team owner Masayoshi Son, and manager Koji Akiyama let his hair down, armed with a beer in each hand and goggles on his face.
Even amid their revelry — and what a party it was, with the Hawks reportedly going through 3,000 bottles in about 20 minutes — they understood the job was only half done.