PITTSBURGH -- My night in the Chicago Cubs clubhouse in Pittsburgh ended about an hour after the celebration began – a party that started not long after Jake Arrieta shut out the Pirates, advancing the Cubs into the National League Division Series, where they’ll face their archrivals, the St. Louis Cardinals.

I was drenched. For the umpteenth time in trying to conduct an interview, someone – I’m looking at you Neil Ramirez or Chris Coghlan -- poured champagne on me and my interviewee. My eyes burned and I was dripping.

As I turned the corner to leave the clubhouse I ran into Cubs hitting consultant and all-around fun guy Manny Ramirez. He was coming out of the coach’s locker area looking clean, having probably just showered. He looked past me as he spoke.

Cubs ace Jake Arrieta celebrates in the locker room after shutting out the Pirates on Wednesday night. Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports

“Is it still going?” Ramirez asked.

As I answered he turned his head and made eye contact.

“Yeah, it’s still going,” I replied.

He sized me up for a split second.

“Oh my god, Papi,” he laughed. “What did they do to you? It’s still going? Really?”

You know it must be a crazy party when Ramirez is stunned by what he’s seeing. My first thought after I finally left was, how impossible it is to visualize how the Cubs would react if this team actually wins the World Series. After all, a wild-card win resembled New Year’s Eve combined with the end of the world. What would a victory even in the next round look like?

“I know. It’s crazy,” relative newcomer Austin Jackson said a few minutes into the celebration.

But Jackson put it into perspective.

“I mean if we go crazy after a regular-season win, what do you think we’re going to do here?” he asked. “We’re going to enjoy this.”

And enjoy it they did -- along with a growing entourage of former players, a Chicago hockey icon and even a rock star. Yes, Chris Chelios and Eddie Vedder were hanging out getting doused and dousing others while former Cubs and front office special assistants Kerry Wood and Ryan Dempster held court. The difficulty came in talking to the current players, as anyone who actually started an interview was quickly descended upon with champagne and beer.

On a side note, Cubs hitting coach John Mallee would be impressed with the deft hand/eye coordination employed by reporters. Using an electronic recording device in this atmosphere is taking its life into your hands. In this case my iPhone served as my tape recorder and when the first feel of beer or champagne was upon me I quickly put the phone in my pocket. This cycle repeated itself. Somehow, the phone stayed sober.

So it’s with that backdrop I roamed the locker room. Listening to Wood and Dempster talk about this talented Cubs team reminded me of what Anthony Rizzo said before the game.

“I think it matters a lot to the former players,” Rizzo said. “There’s a lot of people that have put everything into this organization and this city. We want to make them proud.”

Many former players feel there is unfinished business with the Cubs. Some of them, like Wood and Dempster, are part of the reason. They were on teams that came close but never got far enough. Now they can enjoy the success as they watch a player who just might take the Cubs all the way.

“He’s amazing,” Dempster said of Arrieta. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. No one has. Did you see how everyone had his back right away when he got hit?”

As for Wood, he has claimed for a while now that Arrieta’s stuff was better than even his own when the 1998 Rookie of the Year was striking out 20 batters in a game. Two months ago someone could have put up an argument -- because Wood had it going on back then -- but not anymore. There is no current or historic comparison for Arrieta in Chicago. No one has put up consistent zeroes on the scoreboard at this time of year like he has. His arm is on automatic right now.

As for Arrieta during this party, his now infamous beard was alternately getting wet and being squeezed dry, as he attempted to conduct interviews while simultaneously being pulled back into the fray by his teammates. But in between being pulled in several directions Arrieta had time to explain his favorite moment in the game.

It came not long after getting hit by a pitch in the seventh inning, which cleared the benches for a few minutes. When the dust settled, first base coach Brandon Hyde told Arrieta to take off. He became the first pitcher ever to steal a base in a postseason elimination game. At that moment you knew the Pirates were done.

“I might like that more than the CG [complete game],” he joked. “I’m going to try and stack up a few more in St. Louis.”

Not far from Arrieta in the locker room was probably the player available the most during this mass hysteria, former champion and NLDS Game 1 starter, Jon Lester. He’s older now and has always given off the vibe preferring to watch the fun more than participating in it. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy the celebrations, he’d just rather not get in the fray in the same way the young guys do.

“I don’t dance,” Lester once told me. “You won’t see me doing that.”

That’s OK because there were plenty in the locker room to accommodate. At one point the music stopped for a moment, but pitchers Pedro Strop, Carl Edwards Jr. and several others kept dancing and spraying champagne.

The other stars of the night, Dexter Fowler and Kyle Schwarber -- who acted as the daily double at the top of the order going a combined 5-for-6 against Pirates starter Gerrit Cole -- were equally elusive in being pinned down for an interview. Why did they have all the success in the game? I wanted to find out but it wasn’t easy. Every time a camera or microphone approached Fowler so did a mass of champagne spray. Finally, I had my moment.

“You had a quiet September. What worked against Cole?”

“Patience,” Fowler responded. “We waited him out.”

It’s true. He and Schwarber got ahead in the count and then did their damage. Not often does the game plan work to perfection, but for the top two in the Cubs order, it’s exactly what happened. They made Cole come back over the plate after he tried to jam some pitches inside on the lefties. Several pitches into the game the Cubs led 1-0 because Fowler and Schwarber followed their plan. The man with the wet beard took care of the rest.

And the party continued. A chartered flight to St. Louis awaited but takeoff wasn’t happening until every champagne bottle was emptied – not so much in anyone, but rather on them. It’s a cliché but it’s often said a team takes on the persona of its head coach or manager. The Cubs are no different. It’s not that other teams wouldn’t be celebrating, but more business-like environments bring more businesslike celebrations. Not under Joe Maddon as “keeping it loose” really does mean just that.

Consider this: The Cubs are now 47-19 in their past 66 games. And the further they got into the season, the less the Cubs took batting practice as Maddon calls it the “most overrated thing we do in baseball.” Yet with the wins piling up so did the daily celebrations. The reality is that the Cubs dumped beer and champagne on one another more than they hit before games. That’s not an exaggeration. It means they’re getting good at it. And that gives larger meaning to bench coach Davey Martinez’s words to the team as he climbed a chair during the celebration. The players quieted down while raising their cups and champagne bottles.

“Here’s to the never-ending party boys,” Martinez yelled.

The way they’re playing now, the party may indeed never end.