Bring on Game 5

A quick look at the Guardians-White Sox series and some fun updates from The Joy of Baseball.

(Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)

Happy Saturday, everybody. I have to say I’m pretty fired up for Guardians-White Sox Game 5 tonight. Yes, both teams are flawed. Yes, the series has been a mess of relief pitchers and whiffs. I’m about to give a statistic that will blow your mind.

In the first four games, the teams have combined for:

• 54 hits

• 44 walks

• 49 pitchers

• 84 strikeouts*

*I was vaguely aware of the fact that the White Sox struck out NINETEEN TIMES in Game 3 … but honestly, that should have been a much bigger deal. I mean: A team struck out 19 times in a playoff game? That’s bonkers.

I guess the reason it wasn’t a bigger deal is that it took seven different Cleveland pitchers to get those 19 strikeouts. So this wasn’t exactly a Bob Gibson situation. The White Sox strike out a lot, period, no matter who is on the mound.

That’s right, this series has had 54 hits and 49 pitchers, and frankly I don’t know how you even make sense of something that wacky. I have several friends — Padres fans, Cubs fans, Braves fans — who find this series to be an abomination, and, sure, some of that is sour grapes, but some of that is a fair reading of the quality of the baseball. These aren’t great teams.

But I’m fired up for Game 5 anyway because I’ve decided to embrace the chaos. The White Sox lost 121 games two years ago. The Guardians have been on a desperate decade-long search for someone not named Jose Ramirez who can hit. Sure, they’re defective baseball teams. But aren’t we all defective in some way? Aren’t we all just trying to make our way in the world?

Bring on Game 5. Let’s see what zaniness awaits.

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Speaking of zaniness, this has been a WILD week over at The Joy of Baseball. I hope you know that Molly Knight, and I started The Joy of Baseball project a few weeks ago. It’s a podcast (Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music) — we’ve already had incredible guests like Ken Burns, Bob Costas, Andy Richter, Megan Amram, Bill Glass, Alex Edelman, etc. — but it’s more than that. Molly and I do live video chats. We write a bit over at TJOB hub.

Starting this week, our editor, Kathleen, has started writing the Friday Joy Blast, which is a compilation of happy baseball stories and links guaranteed to brighten your day.

But none of that is the crazy part. No, the crazy part is that we had Nick Offerman on as our guest this week. He was every bit as great as you would expect.

Then, Molly asked him about our current favorite player in the game, Boston’s Payton Tolle, who many people around the game are calling baseball’s Ron Swanson.

You can see why:

Nick as you might expect, was hilarious — and called Tolle his son.

Well, this has blown up. I mean, seriously: BLOWN UP. It went viral on social. Stories are everywhere (at least in Boston). And on Friday, we heard from Payton Tolle himself.

Yes, RolleTolle49 is Payton.

Baseball is the best.

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There’s a chapter in my book WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL about Mike Ditka and the impossible catch-and-run he made on November 24, 1963 — yes, two days after the assassination of JFK.

Here’s that catch (pick it up at 1:30):

There’s a lot to say about Ditka, good and not-so-good. He was an American original, that’s for sure. Today — Ditka passed away Friday at age 86 — I like to think about what his high school basketball coach, Press Maravich (father of the legendary Pete Maravich), said:

“Did you ever see a lion jump through a hoop? That’s how Mike was.”

I don’t think there can be a more fitting obituary for Ditka.