CHICAGO — Ray Kolodziej, 54, a bus mechanic on the Southwest Side, said Saturday night that he knew the Cleveland Guardians would shut out the Chicago White Sox before the game had started. His kitchen table, he said, had let go of his hands at 7:40 p.m. and had not offered an explanation.
The Guardians won Game 5 of the American League Division Series 2-0 in Cleveland, finishing a comeback from a 0-2 deficit in the best-of-five series. José Ramírez hit a two-run home run, and that was all the scoring. Gavin Williams struck out 12 batters, which tied the Cleveland postseason record for strikeouts, according to game reports. The Guardians open the American League Championship Series at Tampa Bay on Monday.
Kolodziej had placed both hands flat on the table for Thursday’s Game 4, a 9-5 Cleveland win that sent the series to a fifth game. The table, an oak pedestal model bought in 1998, had held them through the ninth inning and forty minutes of postgame commentary. On Friday it had told him, by rising an inch and a half, that the hands would stay put until Saturday.
“It let go at 7:40, and I was still getting a beer,” Kolodziej said. “I put both hands on my knees and there was nothing to do about it. You don’t get that unless somebody already knows the score.”
His wife, Barb, said she had not been consulted. “I said the table would know how it turned out,” she said. “I didn’t say it would tell him in advance. It’s not a sports table. It’s a table that’s been in the family for 28 years.”
Kolodziej said the table has never before shown any interest in a game’s outcome, and that he did not ask it for a prediction. He said he did not need one. When Ramírez’s ball cleared the fence, he said, he was already sitting with his hands free, which he described as “the most peace I’ve had since the 1989 season.”
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center has tracked household furniture on postseason nights since 2011. “Furniture that releases a fan’s hands is documented in about 3 percent of cases,” Teller said. “Furniture that releases them before the game begins is not documented at all. We would need to see the table’s calendar.”
Prof. Desmond Achterberg, who holds the Prewitt Chair in Comparative Annoyance at Ellery State University, said the scholarship on tables and foreknowledge is thin but consistent. “Every dining table in the historical record has known how things end,” Achterberg said. “The only open question is whether it tells the man in the chair or the man in the bullpen. This one seems to have told both.”
Asked whether he planned to watch the ALCS, Kolodziej said he would. He said he would keep his hands on his knees, because the table had already said it had no more information.