Until television, baseball players didn't celebrate their victories -- even World Series-clinching victories -- on the field. They went to the dugout, shook hands with each other off the field, and then punched in to their offseason jobs as mail carriers.
But professional sports are performative as well as competitive, and athletes adapt their performance to the audience. World Series celebrations got more elaborate with broadcasts. Then the broadcasts got more elaborate, then enhanced, then arguably superseded by cable and the internet and social media. Content expanded outward, and the performances followed it. It's a meme world now, baby.