Nightengale: Beer taps after ballgame facing last call

• Players say they miss camaraderie%2C not alcohol
• Many teams have banned beer in their clubhouse
• But while the players are more sober these days%2C the clubhouses are a lot more staid

SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. -- Mark Grace stands on the back fields of the Arizona Diamondbacks complex, clad in a uniform as one of their minor league hitting instructors.

In a few hours, he'll be changing into layers of clothes, bracing himself for the cold night air where there is no heat in the winter.

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He's an inmate at the Maricopa County jail, or Tent City, as it's known. That's where Grace spends every evening until June 10.

Grace, with two drunken-driving arrests in 15 months, pleaded guilty in January to felony endangerment and misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol. He was given a four-month jail sentence that includes two years of probation.

"It sucks," Grace tells USA TODAY Sports. "It's embarrassing. I'm away from my kids. My family. But I'm not blaming anybody but myself."

Grace might be Arizona's public face to the consequences of drinking and driving. In baseball, he's something of a relic: a legendary teammate who lingered in the clubhouse until the wee hours, reveling in camaraderie often fueled by alcohol.

But those days are going the way of flannel uniforms.

"The clubhouse has changed so much," Hall of Famer Robin Yount says, "and you hate to say, but it's because there's no beer."

Many teams banned beer in their clubhouse once St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock was killed in a drunken-driving accident in 2007. You can drink on team flights traveling on the road, but on flights home, not one team authorizes drinking.

"I think it's smart, I really do," Los Angeles Dodgers starter Josh Beckett says. "We're all stupid when we're young. You wake up, feeling stupid, and ask yourself, 'Why did I do that?'

"Whenever I have anything to drink now, ever since my daughter was born, I'll call for a car. Too many bad things can happen."

The message might be spreading. Boston Red Sox minor league pitcher Drake Britton, 23, is the only known player arrested this spring on a DUI offense. In the first four months of 2011, six players were arrested on drinking and driving charges.

But while the players are more sober these days, the clubhouses are a lot more staid.

Says Grace: "I'm not in position to talk about that stuff anymore. But you're not going to find guys sitting around hours after games drinking lemonade."

The old-timers say they didn't linger to get drunk but rather to talk shop, learn about the game and bring together an otherwise disparate group. Yount's favorite memories growing up in the Milwaukee Brewers clubhouse were listening to Hank Aaron hold court late after games. Arizona manager Kirk Gibson reminisces about the days with Alan Trammell in Detroit and George Brett in Kansas City.

It wasn't just the beer taps that kept teams together, but the lack of technology. There were no iPhones, iPads, Facebook or Twitter.

"Social media," veteran third baseman Eric Chavez said, "changed everything. The trust factor went away."

Just ask Beckett, part of the 2011 Red Sox team lambasted with news reports that pitchers drank beer and ate chicken during games they weren't scheduled to pitch. This wasn't a matter of reporters seeing the incidents but someone inside the clubhouse leaking the information.

These days, the clubhouse often is a ghost town by 11 p.m.

"Nobody hangs out anymore," San Francisco Giants reliever Scott Proctor says. "You used to sit down and have beers in the clubhouse, and it's not even part of the game anymore. That's what I miss."

This coming from an alcoholic. Proctor, who said he was a binge drinker, has been sober four years. He doesn't miss the beer, he says, only camaraderie that went with it.

He'll even stop at the beer cooler now, he says, and grab a few cold ones for the guys, but only if they promise to sit down and talk shop.

"I lived a lifestyle like 90% of ballplayers," Proctor says. "You sat around and had six beers after a game, went to dinner and had another six, and then guys are calling you to a bar where you're drinking more.

"That wasn't right. I know it wasn't right for me. But as far as guys talking about the game over a few beers, I really think baseball misses that."

Right or wrong, it's never coming back.