You know about Chris Sale. He’s a very good pitcher. He also tends to get injured a lot, sometimes in very strange ways. In 2024, he avoided getting injured until very late in the season, and won the NL Cy Young Award. In 2025, he broke his ribs diving for a ball with a sizable lead in the ninth inning, and did not win the NL Cy Young Award.
On the “more injured” front, well, swords are sharp. I don’t think that Sale has had an Injured List stint related to a sharp object before, but he’s also getting on in years in terms of his career, so he’s running out of time to add that to his ledger. Terry Pratchett had the idea:
On the flip side, this isn’t like, a cursed sword. Presumably, he was given the sword as a positive thing. Maybe, by virtue of its presence, it can ward away whatever causes Sale to get injured doing stuff like biking to Chipotle. You don’t know that it can’t do that, simply because Sale never had this sword before, and did get injured doing stuff like biking to Chipotle.
On a more serious note, this is pretty cool. More gear companies should give athletes cool swag. Or maybe just swords. I am pretty bummed that literally all coverage of this sword is a short clip or a do-nothing article. I want details. What kind of sword? It’s described as “custom made” — custom made how? I’m literally starved for baseball-player-receives-sword information here, people.
