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John Axford finds more success on Oscar night in 2017

By Jennifer Rainwater

February 29, 2016; Mesa, AZ, USA; Oakland Athletics relief pitcher John Axford (61) poses for a picture during photo day at Hohokam Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
February 29, 2016; Mesa, AZ, USA; Oakland Athletics relief pitcher John Axford (61) poses for a picture during photo day at Hohokam Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports /
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This is not the first or even second time I’ve followed MLB reliever and film scholar John Axford‘s annual Oscar predictions.

Yes, that means I’ve been following the right-hander’s annual tradition since before he signed with the Oakland Athletics.

I first learned of this now-phenomenon in 2014 because of a hashtag on Twitter while I was, with the rest of the world, live-tweeting about the Oscars.

At the time I didn’t know much about the right-hander but it was a pretty huge deal as he went a perfect 18-for-18 in his 2014 picks, which you have to admit is extremely impressive.

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The following year when he published his predictions in The Player’s Tribune for the first time I was even more intrigued.

As it turns out Axford has a B.A. in television and film from Notre Dame and has been a sponsor of the Milwaukee Film Festival since 2011.

Axford went 14-15 in 2013 adding three more categories for 2014, but that was before the A’s reliever/film buff’s picks became a sort of tradition between him and fans of both baseball and film.

He goes on to mention in his first contribution to The Player’s Tribune that he was called out, by some, for not attempting to predict all 24 of the Oscar categories.

So in 2015 he took their challenge, making a prediction for each category and did surprisingly well, at least in my opinion, calling 17 of 24 categories correctly.

Oakland Athletics
Feb 22, 2017; Mesa, AZ, USA; Oakland Athletics relief pitcher John Axford (61) poses for photos on photo day at Hohokam Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports /

He published another post on The Player’s Tribune on February 28 of last year, once again with all 24 of his predictions. Axford impressed last year again, going 19-for-24.

So how did he do this year? It was another 19-for-24 night for the Athletics’ reliever, according to MLB.com’s CutFour.

Well, much like the “little snafu” at the Oscars Sunday night, Axford predicted La-La Land as this year’s Best Picture when the  winning film was actually Moonlight.

Funnily enough the pitcher, who announced his predictions on his Twitter account this year, had actually been hoping that Moonlight would win all along.

So really it was a 20-for-24 night for Axford.

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Should there be more nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars? What would John Axford say?