Oakland Athletics’ reliever John Axford deserves a healthy round of applause after his Oscars effort on Sunday night, when he went 17-for-24 in predicting the winners of the 88th Academy Awards. He correctly named the best actor and actress, and nailed plenty of lesser-known categories like sound mixing, film editing, and costume design.
Axford, who was a film and television major at Notre Dame and earned a Bachelor of Arts in the field, has made a habit of correctly predicting the Oscars. In 2014 as the Cleveland Indians’ closer, he went 18-for-18 on major categories. Last year, he went 17-for-24 as well.