Getting to know Lucas Giolito through Twitch

Lucas Giolito Twitch Profile, GeneralGio

Before coronavirus upended everyone’s daily routines, Tim Anderson was providing a unique behind-the-scenes look of spring training through his YouTube channel. Watching him work out and conversing with his teammates was very refreshing. The best part of Anderson’s videos is when he lowered his guard and letting the viewer learn what makes him tick. It’s the type of content we rarely get to see in sports today, and it’s self-produced by Anderson rather than the White Sox or another media entity. Unfortunately, when spring training stopped, so did Anderson’s videos on YouTube. When some form of baseball returns, I hope Anderson picks up where he left off with his channel.

With real-life baseball shut down, fans now have the opportunity to learn more about another budding star on the White Sox: Lucas Giolito. Giolito’s remarkable turnaround earned him plenty of features, and the most recent from James Fegan of The Athletic is perhaps the best. Still, it’s his Twitch channel that’s making him more relatable than anything.

Giolito is representing the White Sox, competing against other team reps in the MLB The Show Players League. The league rolled it out slowly at first, but it’s picked up steam in viewership — so much so that ESPN, MLB Network, and Fox Sports are going to be broadcasting players’ Twitch streams.

During the regular season, each game is only three innings long, and every player plays four games. Currently, Giolito is seventh in the standings with Joey Gallo and Blake Snell leading the charge. The top eight players will make the postseason. Ashley Sanders of South Side Hit Pen has been recapping Giolito’s games.

Watching Giolito play MLB The Show is entertaining. His reactions to home runs and baserunning blunders are similar to how everyone feels playing the game. Occasionally, Jason Benetti tags along to provide commentary during games.

The most fun part of viewing Giolito’s Twitch stream is his interactions with fans. Like Anderson’s YouTube channel, viewers get an opportunity to learn more about him. Here are a few opinions Giolito shared during a recent AMA:

Movies

  • Favorite Movie Ever: Saving Private Ryan
  • Worst Movie Ever Seen: Grown Ups 2. It was also the closest he’s ever gotten leaving a theater during a movie. 
  • Favorite Movie Director: Quentin Tarantino
  • Favorite Baseball Movie: Bull Durham. Major League is his second favorite. 
  • Hoosiers is one of his favorite sports movies
  • Favorite Martin Scorsese Movie: Goodfellas
  • Not really into comic book movies or Disney movies.

Television

  • Giolito is currently watching Ozark. He thinks the show is OK because of Jason Bateman, but the writing is too predictable. 
  • He did see Tiger King. He doesn’t know if Carol Baskin killed her ex-husband, but Giolito doesn’t agree with the free-Joe Exotic crowd. 
  • Next show Giolito will be binging: Better Call Saul
  • Breaking Bad is one of his favorite TV shows. 
  • His Top 5 Favorite Sitcoms (in no particular order): The Office, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm, How I Met Your Mother, and Schitt’s Creek
  • Favorite show as a kid: Pokemon
  • Best Animated Series Ever: Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • Criminal Minds is a guilty pleasure. 

Video Games

  • Favorite Video Game Ever: The Legend of Zelda – Ocarina of Time
  • Most Played Video Game: Rocket League
  • Go to Super Smash Bros. Character: Kirby
  • Go to Mario Kart character: Yoshi
  • First Video Game Console: Nintendo 64

Food/Drink

  • Beer Choices: Started with IPAs but now prefers pilsners. Listed Modelo as a personal favorite. 
  • Go to Quarantine Snack: Snyder’s Honey Mustard n’ Onion pretzel bites
  • Portillo’s order: Italian beef with everything, fries, and a milkshake. However, he thinks the Chocolate Cake Shake is too much. 
  • Go to Fast Food: In-N-Out. Giolito does have a beef with Five Guys. He enjoys his burgers to be medium rare and doesn’t like how every burger at Five Guys is cooked well done. He also thinks Whataburger is comparable to McDonald’s. From personal experience, Giolito will lose some clout from fans living in Texas. 

Music

  • Listens mostly to rappers. 
  • Personal favorites: Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, and Kid Cudi. 
  • Big fan of the album Blondie by Frank Ocean
  • Not a country music fan. 
  • He also enjoys reggae style music and is a fan of Rebelution. 

Baseball

  • Best Player on his High School Team Senior Year: Max Fried
  • Best Harvard-Westlake Player of All-Time: Jack Flaherty
  • Most Fun Pitch to Throw: High heaters
  • Giolito has participated in quite a few First Pitch ceremonies at Guaranteed Rate Field. The best first pitch he caught was Sister Mary Jo Sobieck. His favorite First Pitch is with Kanye West.

You can pay for a subscription to Giolito’s Twitch channel. That may sound a bit crazy to pay a monthly fee to watch a professional athlete play video games, but the proceeds are for a good cause with Giolito donating them to the Orphan Kitten Project. He and his wife, Ariana, are fostering a cat that just gave birth to four kittens part of the Orphan Kitten Project. Another nugget of insight learned from watching his Twitch channel.

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Jim Margalus

The couple times I checked it out, he was scolding the Road to the Show mode for having its character call the manager “coach,” and getting corrected by the viewers for forgetting the three-batter rule.

Anohito

Everyone also needs to make sure to check his latest VODs/clips to see Jason call Rocket League without knowing a lick of what’s going on. Absolute solid gold.

Also Giolito isn’t the only Sox streamer during this time, Rodon also streams and so does Mendick. Go give them some love too!

Rodon:
https://www.twitch.tv/hard_karl55
Mendick:
https://www.twitch.tv/dmendick

Anohito

Giolito clinched the player’s league playoffs with a 19-10 record good for 6th seed! Let’s go!