let’s play: Immaculate Grid!

https://www.immaculategrid.com/

100000% chance that all you guys are going to be better than me, I’ve only managed to complete this three times in the two and a half weeks I’ve been playing.

Baseball Twitter is big into this, people love finding the most obscure picks for each square. I think the lowest 0.1% pick I got for some square was Freddy Sanchez (Pirates who were also Giants) 😎.

Anyway it’s really fun to play, new grid every day but you can’t play the old ones!

Sorry some of you are lying with your immaculate grids there’s just no way you just know a guy named Bilbo Bogtrotter who played for the Reds before WWII

— jayne (@GI_Jayneee) June 26, 2023

My lowest score today was 0.5% for the bottom left square Ian Kinsler

Rough today because I don’t know much about two of today’s franchises!

I tried this, but I don't think I understand it. For today's, you're supposed to name any pitcher from any of those five teams who struck out 200+ batters in a season? I clicked inside each grid, selected a name...and I'm not sure how I did.

I’m pretty pleased with my answers today despite my lack of Twins knowledge burning me badly.

Whichever Rogers twin played for the Twins didn’t get 40 & the only other closer I know for them is Jhoan Duran, so…
https://i.postimg.cc/1zmKR9M1/IMG-4433.jpg

This game is awesome!

yeah this is fun!

Can you guys share your answers behind the hide text if you don’t mind, I love seeing what other people put down

had to cheat a bit on the middle square

andrew miller - jackie bradley jr. - jonathan papelbon
luis arraez - kyle lohse - joe nathan
miguel cabrera - prince fielder - mariano rivera

7/9 today, I usually blank out on the "played for team A and team B" squares. I don't look anything up, where's the fun in that?

Sammy Sosa - Albert Belle - Cal Ripken Jr.
x - Francisco Lindor - Mike Piazza
x - Carlos Santana - Ichiro

guessed a couple wrong today, shouldn’t try to get so cute

😎
My Giants knowledge getting it done today.

https://i.postimg.cc/6qRdYSCM/IMG-4548.jpg

ok this is great

i biffed the houston/tb one today.

Literally only got that one cos it was mentioned in the commentary of some game I was watching

I finally figured this out a few days ago (duh)...Same as Thermo for today's: 8/9. Stared at the screen for 10 minutes, couldn't think of anyone for Houston/TB. I don't know how to copy/hide my grid, but my most obscure correct answer was Dickie Thon for Houston/Philadelphia.

having infinite time to stare at the thing is not going to be good for my productivity

Having checked the Houston/TB answers (five, I think), I'm just glad I gave up--I would have still been sitting there in 2029.

got 9/9 this time, all higher profile and/or al east teams made it easy for me

8/9 the only Phil/LA player I could think of was Dick Allen

i went with Utley

Looking at the NFL/NBA versions, man I don't know a damn thing about those aside from the 49ers (sort of) and Mavericks.

I had Utley too, although I like Dick Allen better as an answer. I expect I'll ace all the stat/award stuff and struggle with the upper-left part of the grid; I just don't pay enough attention to player movement that doesn't involve Jays and/or stars.

8/9 again--missed Tigers/Rockies. Rockies are extra-hard because who can name any Rockies pitchers? Tried to hide/display my grid on a testing thread, all I got were 8 green squares and one white one.

That’s the one I missed too

got lucky with Todd Zeile for CO/NY - I was thinking of his time with the Mets

8/9, struggled even with the Tigers/Braves

Yeah 8/9 for me too but a different one I think
https://i.postimg.cc/Z5VjSyh2/IMG-4668.jpg

I watched a LOT of bad baseball this year for this one.

for the Barves answers i really knocked the rarity numbers out of the park: Darrel Evans, 1%; Ron Gant, 2%; Gary Sheffield 3%

Yeah, you should include your rarest answers along with your score; mine were Eddie Matthews for the Braves/Tigers and Joe Torre for the Braves/Cardinals, both 2%.

8/9, I got tripped up by the Tigers/Rockies square (as did most people).

killed the braves column: mike hessman (det), ken oberkfell (stl), claudell washington (nyy) all 0.2%

but i had no col/det and i tried to get too fancy with the 40+ homers

Yeah if it helped I put Goldie for the middle right one and in retrospect, why

So is the rarity score actually one of the objectives? I haven't been playing that way, but I will if it is.

i would guess that most people playing the game can probably answer most of the questions (rockies/tigers aside), so yeah rarity is a thing. which is nice for you, as i bet you'll totally kick ass at it

Just a function of being older. When I answered Joe Torre for the Braves/Cardinals, that for me is an obvious answer: perennial All-Star with the Braves, an MVP with the Cardinals. But he was 2% of the correct answers. I'll still struggle with the intersecting teams--and will usually be happy if I can come up with even one answer--but I will go for more offbeat stat/award answers.

9/9, really concentrated on less obvious answers: all but one under 10%, six 5% or under, three under 1%. The one name that escaped me was J.A. Happ for the Jays 20-game winner, so I settled for Morris--who surprisingly was only 3% anyway.

Rarity Score: 62.

If they added a time component to this, I'd be dead.

8/9.
Could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME name a single A/Pirate, the only reason I got the reliever is cos I read about him being picked up by the Pirates off waivers.
https://i.postimg.cc/63hPG7Ct/IMG-4734.jpg
Sorry for letting you down with my lack of Pirates knowledge, Mookieproof.

What’s funny is your top right answer could have been used for the one you didn’t get!

That's who I used for my top left (I was pretty sure but not 100%). Could have used Jeff Kent twice too, if you were allowed to. I actually found Cy Young/MVP a little tricky since double-winners have been somewhat arbitrary. Best example: Rice beat out Guidry in '78, but Clemens beat out Mattingly in '86. I thought that's what happened, but again, wasn't 100% sure, so I went with a safe 36% choice there.

xp I didn’t know that until you said so, I had two answers for that top right square and Cutch was a more obvious choice

Let me know what your Jays answers were, Thermo. I had (working down) Al Oliver, Candy Maldonado--both under 1%--and Morris at 36%.

Those are all solid 80s answers!

I had Liriano, Pillar & Clemens (6%, 10% & 21%)

Unfortunately I chose the most obvious answers Jose Bautista, Brandon Belt, Roy Haaladay. I have plenty of room for improvement in this game.

I came up with what might be the only Immaculate Grid with the same answer for all nine squares (if you include a major award and a major statistical benchmark--there are guys who've played for nine teams, so that would be the other way to go). This is extremely easy.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ib_kzXqxUdy4qWeNf2c_Q72Ka0UHxIZXq1d9ufTfll8/edit?usp=sharing

8/9, couldn't start to think of a Pirates/Jays crossover. Rarity score:304

Jason Kendall - Ray Knight - Barry Bonds
Barry Zito - Brandon Belt - Willie
Bob Welch - Roy Halladay - Sandy Koufax

Ray Knight was supposed to be Gary Carter - 'long career, played in Canada, might have made a pit stop in Pittsburgh?' - and still wrong

I had Bob Welch for his 27 win season my first year playing rotisserie baseball, age 9 - also Bobby Thigpen & Cecil Fielder... my roto talent scout career was all downhill from there

We don't need to get into specifics, but not good at all today. (I did figure out that you can think in terms of franchises, so I was able to use the Expos in place of the Nationals.)

4/9 - Chris Young for Rangers X Padres and Johnny Damon/Julio Franco/Paul Molitor for SB

The highlight for me was using two Seattle Pilots for Brewers answers.

5/9, nothing doing down the left side at all.
https://i.postimg.cc/v8Lr1JgG/IMG-4800.jpg

I can’t believe I fucked up the KC sb one. A solid decade of speedy players and I pick one who never broke 30 with them.
Also lol at me forgetting the obvious answers to SD & Tex/Mil and landing guys with 2% rarity

Here's your cheat sheet if you ever want to check yourself after the fact:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/multifranchise.cgi

Another single-answer grid, marginally tougher than the first one I posted (had to cut some slack on the statistical benchmark):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kOwakO07O_liYBPBCYHoDJuvEFKz-Zrs0lQnbjjhM98/edit?usp=sharing

8/9, Bert Blyleven never won a Cy

8/9...Flubbed my first Cubs/Red Sox guess (Josh Beckett), tried a second correct one, so never got to Cubs/Guardians. Rarity score 197: seven correct answers 1-10%, settled for the easy Twins/Red Sox answer. I almost boxed myself in with Rick Sutcliffe as the Cubs Cy Young winner--I should have used him for the Cubs/Guardians box. So there is some strategy involved.

No idea how, but the only Cleveland/Cubs guy I could think of was Jody Gerut.
And today I learned that Cy Young, the man they named THE pitching award after, never got to 3,000 Ks!

8/9 not my best effort due to

Guardians.
https://i.postimg.cc/VvQzPjsx/IMG-4882.jpg

I tried to get clever with my first guess by guessing Lefty Grove for the Boston pitcher with 3000 K's. Oh well.
Craig Kimbrel - x - Rick Sutcliffe
David Ortiz - x - Frank Viola
Roger Clemens - Bert Blyleven - Pedro Martinez

When I'm stumped I guess Edwin Jackson or Octavio Dotel or one of those other handful of guys who played for 12+ teams. I haven't been right once!

gyac, your baseball knowledge is pretty impressive for someone who only recently got into the game. It's miles better than mine (I would never call myself a massive fan).

I got 7/9, my best showing yet. I'm much better at the stat categories than the team x team categories. Bill Buckner, Phil Niekro, and Tom Seaver were my best answers.

I whiffed on Bob Feller having 3000 Ks.

i fuckin did it. i will never do this again. boston in there was the only way i had a chance. rarity score 238

yeah i guessed warren spahn for cy young/3000 ks, turns out world war ii put a dent in a lot of counting stats from that era

My problem with this game--the game is great; I literally mean my problem--is my fading memory for names. The other day, I couldn't remember A.J. Happ, who goes back all of six or seven years with the Jays. I couldn't remember Ian Kinsler's name one day. ("Tampa Bay, the super-utility player, impressive WARs...") And this had to do with something else, not the grid, but I couldn't remember Jose Reyes's name. This is a guy with over 2000 hits, Hall of the Good, came to the Jays with a lot of fanfare, had a polarizing three seasons here (unfairly--when a team's going nowhere, your best players get them blame), hard player to forget. I remember him well. Just couldn't come up with a name.

Best thing on today's was having both Gaylord and Jim Perry on the same grid.

I'm mixing up Ian Kinsler with Ben Zobrist--it was Zobrist I couldn't remember. I can't even remember who I can't remember.

Ty PBKR! Speaking of Edwin Jackson, I saw this grid and need to try it.

While doing your immaculate grid here's a grid you could try, The Edwin Jackson grid

In his career Edwin Jackson played for 14 Teams while making an All star game and a WS which are all in this grid

This works like a normal grid but the only rule is you can't use Edwin Jackson pic.twitter.com/Na3c8czBDV

— Griff (@Jram2TBJ) July 6, 2023

I don't think there's a Cy Young or MVP box I'll ever miss; haven't encountered ROY yet, but I'd be easy to stump there. Outside of the occasional Fred Lynn or Albert Pujols, I forget half of them within a year.

I made up a managers Immaculate Grid:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wFtj-9oT4CYnBL05gZFyYVqd3pTKCclraQ_g9GH4L60/edit?usp=sharing

Most of it is easy, but one box might be very difficult.

7/9. I'm a washout when it comes to the Rays, Rockies, Marlins, and D-Backs--except for a few big stars, I know nothing about those teams. Picked three All-Stars who together added up to less than 1%: Frank Tanana, Mark Belanger, and Ralph Garr. Thrill of the day: Bo Belinsky for Angels/Reds, which I only knew because I just finished the Belinsky chapter in the Pat Jordan book--I think he pitched about three innings for the Reds in his final season.

One of my incorrect guesses was Lyman Bostock for the Angels' All-Star. He should have been on both the '76 and '77 teams--hitting .330 at the break both years. Wouldn't have helped me anyway: he was still on the Twins.

Miserable 6/9.

https://i.postimg.cc/xTzqhMVR/IMG-4909.jpg
- thought Tim Salmon would have been an All Star - no
- Derek Lowe was an AS but not for the Braves, but previously the game hasn’t enforced it like that? Anyway I wasted two guesses going “Sorry, what?” cos I was sure I’d selected the wrong Lowe or something.
- 90% of Orioles players I’m aware of are ex Giants, Kevin Gausman, and the current children of the corn roster.
-Shoutout to Brooks Conrad who gets mentioned in every writeup of the 2010 Giants postseason. I wondered if they traded him immediately after, they didn’t, but when they did they traded him to Tampa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Kr8Gky4Js

6/9, which is not bad for me. Hit pay dirt with Norm Charlton (0.3%) for CIN/ATL, and Roberto Alomar (0.3%) for BAL All-Star.

Now part of B-R!

they moved on that pretty fast!

sporcle kicking themselves!

Finally a 9/9! (seemed much easier than usual though). Rarity score:226. Love that you can see all the possible answers for each square with one click. Just 14 players in the history of the Dodgers and Yankees franchises with 200 hits?

Zach Greinke - Mike Piazza - Steve Garvey
Gerrit Cole - RICKEY! - Derek Jeter
Roy Oswalt - Lenny Dykstra - Pete Rose

I needed the ego-boost of a 9/9, so I went for a couple of easy ones (including the super-obvious 63%). Rarity: 126. Best answers were all Houston (working down): Jimmy Wynn at 1%, Bob Watson at 0.6%, and--surprised he wasn't higher--Joe Morgan at 3%. It Makes a Fellow Proud to Guess the Astros.

More people are naming Curtis Granderson as a Yankee/Met than Darryl Strawberry or Dwight Gooden? That's weird.

Duke Snider's lack of hustle in 1950 cost me a perfect score! you only needed one more hit dude!

clems: there is a wild recency bias to the answers. i've found even obvious players from the 80s will be rare if there is a rando bench guy that will work from the last decade.

I think I was starting to notice that, yeah. This will help my rarity scores; I don't know any of the rando bench guys...Two guys whose 200+ hits surprised me: Dave Cash, twice for the Phillies, and that Ruth guy for the Yankees.

9/9, rarity 95

recently reading the book on the '86 Mets and my dad's favorite team being the Dodgers paid off

I contacted them today (meaning Baseball Reference) suggesting access to older grids, and also my managers/single-player ideas. So I fully expect to be hired by them any day now.

just this morning someone on reddit posted their new IG clone that auto generates them endlessly but it looks like the thread is gone now.

like a lot of these daily challenges, i initially yearn for the ability to play more and more before realizing that i would get burnt out if it wasn't limited. i've already hit a point where i've been able to reuse answers from past grids simply because i remember the past grid

B-R's adding the one thing i really wanted! i always end up using B-R's multi-franchise search after anyway.

I knew I'd do terrible as soon as I saw Arizona and Miami, and I'm not great on the White Sox or Mariners either. 6/9, only 1/4 on player movement (and that was the ever-popular default guess of Edwin Jackson). Also, soon enough after midnight that no fewer than three of my correct answers were 100%.

How the fuck did I not think of Randy Johnson for Seattle/Arizona? Most embarrassing whiff so far.

I felt dumb taking a full minute to arrive at that answer.

8/9, I missed on what I thought was a mulligan, but it turns out that Alex Rodriguez did not win ROY, he finished a close second.

For ROY/100RBI, I forgot the rules and thought it had to have happened in the same season, still got it right though (clem can probably guess who I picked).

6/9 - only 1 obvious one on the Marlin line I forgot Ichiro ended up in that cesspool and a wild guess at Sox ROY

NoTime: I thought it had to be in the same season too, went with the very safe Albert Pujols. For yours, since I'm '70s guy, I'll guess Fred Lynn.

I knew you'd get it!

My brain immediately crashed and burned on the bottom left pick, oh well! 8/9.


https://i.postimg.cc/fRQHR6q4/IMG-5004.jpg
-Eduardo Escobar: every time he appeared on a Mets Instagram story I’d look at his BR page. Have used him recently I think.
- BUSTER POSEY IS 0.9%?????
- Michael Morse is the scorer of the third most clutch hr in the 2014 Giants postseason and had his career ended by knuckle dragging pos Hunter Strickland instigating a pointless brawl. I still appreciate you, king!
- Mat Latos spent 2010-2012 complaining about the Giants, you’d better believe I’m familiar with his BR page

So your Rarity Score entirely depends upon when you do this. When I did today's a few minutes after midnight, Jeff Conine as the Marlins 100-RBI guy was 100%. "Seriously? Ahead of Miggy and Stanton?" Of course he's down to 2% now.

9/9, rarity score 201. Had the toughest time with the chisox ROY for some reason but dug deep. Immaculate Grid 101 9/9:
Rarity: 201
IMMACULATE!
🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩
Play at:
https://immaculategrid.com
@immaculategrid x @baseball_ref

Whoops...oh well

got Ron kittle for the lower left, Alvin Davis for Seattle ROY. Had trouble remembering big unit too!

Ron Kittle is everything I love about this game (Immaculate Grid, not baseball in general)--that name hasn't crossed my mind in 30 years. I was initially going to say he was a terrible ROY choice, but he wasn't that bad. It should have been Boddicker, but 35 HR, 100 RBI, and a .500 SLG are something. He was 25 and clearly going nowhere with all the strikeouts and terrible OBP, but there have been worse ROYs, I'm sure.

When I was nine I went to this game and definitely distinctly remember Kittle hitting that late game fly out to center in the eighth inning, he sent Omar Moreno to the warning track for it. Remembered the game bc it was against the Yankees, and Greg Walker hit two HR. And Mattingly also sent one, maybe two deep flys out to the CF wall. Great game to see some stars, in retrospect. Four HOfers, a couple of guys in Mattingly and Randolph who have good arguments for enshrinement, some legit hall of very good guys like Luzinski, Righetti, and Baylor. Plus a folk hero like Kittle.

Both managers in the HOF too.

Yep, definitely in retrospect a real treat to see Yogi in (managerial) action.

I love this game...I hate this game...Do I really want to sit here for 40 minutes every night trying to shake loose names that might not even be there? My dumbest mistake tonight was naming Hank Greenberg as the Tigers' 500 HR guy so I could avoid Miggy. Greenberg wasn't even close. Tino Martinez hit more HR.

i always have so much trouble with the rockies. they hold onto players for so long!

I have started to have repeat guys on this, usually because if I get a guess wrong I’ll go and look at their page. 8/9 btw.

For example, could I have got Ian Kinsler if I hadn’t misused him in a square a couple of weeks back and found myself on his page? No. The chances of me using Brooks Conrad in the centre square were nil - except that Traitor Hand doubted my knowledge of niche Giants postseason run characters. I wouldn’t have looked on his BR page again (short career) to make a point otherwise!

https://i.postimg.cc/4d8CHTyx/IMG-5092.jpg

(Though I did know he’d been a Padre cos he features in On Jeff Ears).

Scutaro was also a hero of the 2012 Giants postseason.

Could have done Bonds for the homers but obviously there was at least one other Giant I knew of who’d have a better rarity value (lol).

I figured out how to master this game. 30 teams, so 435 combinations: half of (30 x (30-1)). Find the fewest number of players--35 or 40 would be my guess--who cover all 435. Memorize the players, memorize the combinations. Study up on awards, benchmarks, and the HOF. That's it--you'll never miss an answer again.

Much easier! If a guy has played for 10 teams, that's 45 combinations. So you could probably cover all 435 with 15-20 players, accounting for duplications. Okay, wish me luck.

i only got 7/9 (fucking rockies) - but was finally able to successfully deploy Edwin Jackson

Me every time the Rockies come up on this

Bryce Harper to the Rockies: "You're a loser fucking organization. Every single one of you" https://t.co/x7EKvXjY8i pic.twitter.com/TJT39HEP2v

— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) May 14, 2023

What I know about the Rockies:

1) They had one HOF'er and two future HOF'ers.
2) A bunch of guys had park-aided (and sometimes gift-wrapped) career years there: Dante Bichette, Vinny Castilla, Andrés Galarraga, Ellis Burks.
3) They sent Toronto my least favourite Blue Jay ever, Troy Tulowitzki (sitting in a bar somewhere today, still complaining about the trade).
4) Ubaldo Jiménez once had an incredible half-season for them.
5) Other people have pitched for them.

The Rockies+tigers thing was awful but made a wild guess with mark Redman of all dudes and secured the 9/9

Dante Bichette had such a weird career. Some absolutely genuinely monster counting stat seasons, on the face of them without digging beneath the surface just totally an MVP type, and then he had a career wins above replacement that Ohtani probably just accomplished in the last three weeks of June. So many of the other 90s Rockies were legitimately valuable: Walker obv, Helton of course, Galarraga, Burks, Castilla...they had enhanced stats, some more than others, but they had plus value.

I'd better clarify something before someone jumps all over me: when I say "least favourite Blue Jay ever," I'm thinking (for all of two seconds) purely in terms of baseball. Obviously, the Jays have had a rogue's gallery of players--I can think of five immediately--who've done and said awful things.

I don't know what they were overall, but the splits for Bichette's greatest season ('95) are pretty stark: .378/.398/.755 at home, .300/.329/.473 on the road. He walked 22 times that year in total. The was I see those four: Burks and Galarraga were good players who had fine seasons elsewhere, Castilla I don't know, Bichette was almost wholly a creation of his park.

"The way I see..."

Def true, also it's funny how his bWAR his last two forgotten years in Cincy and Boston was 1.3, whereas his "peak" 95-99 run produced 0.8

Going by bWAR, at least, a lot of his negative value resided in defense.

He of course has my eternal gratitude anyway.

My first 9/9! Having a jays column helped a lot for me, and managed to land a 170 rarity.

Nice. Should have been a gimme for me, but I fluffed the Pirates/Braves: I thought Russell Martin played for every perennial playoff team ever. (Wish I'd answered Casey Stengel.) I had five at 1% or under, so a rarity of 127. (How do they calculate rarity for incorrect answers?) My favourite answer today was Dave Collins for Jays/Reds.

8/9. Didn’t even attempt the middle square lol
https://i.postimg.cc/yNrcpCLp/IMG-5206.jpg

I went for rarity as best I could

Bream/McGriff/Lonnie Smith
Parker/Encarnacion/Hal Morris
Kiner/Molitor/Ortiz

Sid Bream did cross my mind for the box I missed--he was mentioned on the biggest-disappointment thread the other day. I knew he'd been a Brave because of that play, was less sure about the Pirates...which is sheer forgetfulness, because he's probably better know for the Pirates.

I was thinking that arguably the three greatest lead-off men ever, and inarguably the greatest, cover a lot of real estate for this game: Henderson, Raines, and Lofton. They played for a total of 26 teams, 21 after subtracting duplications--70% of existing franchises.

8/9, struck out on the Blue Jays/Reds crossover

Wish there was a variation on this that was just stats, I find those squares more fun than player movement.

The thing I most dislike about the player-movement boxes--well, I'll be honest: the thing I most dislike is I'm not very good at them. The second thing I most dislike is what Thermo called their randomness; they can be filled in with someone who might have spent a nothing half-season with one of the teams. Who remembers that? It's definitely a game for someone who's been paying attention to rosters of the past two or three seasons. I don't know what the experience of other older posters is, but for me, my attention is forever narrowing to the team I follow and to stars. Everything else vanishes on contact.

On the other hand, if the game were just statistics and awards, it wouldn't be nearly as challenging for me, and I probably would have lost interest by now. Other than the silly Hank Greenberg guess, I don't think I've missed one of those yet. So I like the challenge, even though it ends up making me feel stupid and old.

Won't accept Roger Clemens in the 300+ wins column.

Last I checked*, Rog had 354 wins. This game is garbage.

*https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/clemero02.shtml

Wins are a stupid stat (2/3 of the names I put down were at 251 for their careers)

(xpost) But he didn't play for any of those three teams down the left side.

8/9--drew a blank on KC/Cleveland, tried Hoyt Wilhelm. Got the easy Carlos Beltran answer for Mets/Royals, but thought of Saberhagen and Amos Otis after, which would have been better. Best answer: Nelson Briles for KC/St. Louis, 0.02%.

"For team and career stat: The player who reached the career stat simply had to play for the team at any point. For example, Randy Johnson would match for 3,000 strikeouts even though he had 2,162 for Seattle and 2,077 for Arizona."

They're a little inconsistent on this, I know. "For two stat/awards cells: The player did not necessarily need to accomplish the stats/awards in the same season. For example, Willie McCovey would qualify for 40+ HR and Rookie of the Year."

xps: oh shit, i didn't realize the team component was in play for that row... lol. will try again.

9/9, for some reason I was dying with KC/Cleveland and STL/Baltimore, my memory didn't fail me though bc I correctly guessed Jason Grimsley for the first and finally remembered that Will Clark played for both of the latter pair.

I was pretty impressed with my Kevin Seitzer guess for KC/Cle

Another guy I haven't thought about in two or three decades, Seitzer. I feel like this game is a metaphor for (or an analogy to) the way the brain works, all those neurons combining and recombining into synapses that make memories and knowledge. (If I've got that right...) My Kevin Seitzer and Ron Kittle synapses have been dead for years and they're being reawakened.

(Oops--forgot to hide text, sorry.)

One dumb mistake, one wrong guess. Dumb: Dave Henderson for Angels/Red Sox, linked in my mind because of one game. I thought of Fred Lynn immediately, but I wanted something less obvious. Wrong guess: Milt Pappas for Cubs/Tigers. Best answers: Rico Petrocelli, Brian Downing, Chet Lemon.

Pretty easy one today--I was able to use some Expos, and none of the four most recent franchises are on there. I gave in on the top left and bottom right corners and went with the two most obvious answers, both between 50-60%. Rarity score of 155, with five answers 5% or less: Rusty Staub, Mike Scott, Charlie Hough, Mike Marshall, Don Drysdale.

I don't remember I-Rod spending a season with the Astros at all.

If you want to avoid really obvious answers, 200+ K is actually pretty tricky. There are so many pitchers from the '70s and '80s that you probably thought of as hard throwers at the time, or at least guys with a lot of stuff, but they might have struck out 150 or 180 at most. Case in point: Andy Messersmith, whose career 6.9 H/9 was great at the time, and comports with my memory of him as being really hard to hit. (Lifetime ERA under 3.00, too.) He did strike out 200, three times, but just barely, with a high of 221. I wasn't sure, so I used someone else.

7/9

https://i.postimg.cc/0yb8DZhv/IMG-5528.jpg

Only reason I got Gary Carter was thinking about Expos, and the only reason I know about Expos is my better half recently got an Expos cap and we were looking up non-Pedro Expos.

I thought Ian Kinsler would work for Texas/Gold Glove but possibly they changed it? Cos now you have to have won the award there and I’m sure that wasn’t the case for my picks in the past. I wasn’t going to get that Nationals/Astros one anyway

my complete indifference to the gold glove award comes back to bite me!

8/9, with one of those gold glove guesses wrong

happy i remembered michael young’s weird career ending year with the dodgers and phillies, helped my rarity score and allowed me to use beltre for the obvious rangers gold glover. tho I just remembered that mark teixeira must’ve won one with them, d’oh

I'm the same with gold gloves, but if you don't care about rarity (and if you remember that they didn't start till '57), you can always stick with obvious HOF'ers.

I'm really bad at this game as I am only slowly getting back into baseball due to my teenage son getting into it, so my knowledge is still mostly 90s based, but I do still remember a bunch of obscure 90s expos and so managed to get 7/9 today, which is by far my best score I've managed

https://i.postimg.cc/CnfbkhW5/image.png

whoops, that image should have been

https://i.postimg.cc/tJBD07k3/image.png

I still haven't figured out an easy way to do this, but:

https://postimg.cc/FYjqFxRd

How do you simultaneously code for the image and for hiding the image? When I did both--image code inside hide-text code--it didn't work.

just doing it as i did before:

Ken Caminiti/Moises Alou/Mike Scott
Corey Seager/Pedro Martinez/Tim Belcher
Rafael Palmeiro/Andre Dawson/Maddux obv

i remembered Palmeiro because of the controversy over him winning a GG during a season when he DHed enough to only play a tiny handful of games at first base.

I figured Seager and Maddux were obvious picks so tried for a bit more rarity in a couple others. It worked, Tim Belcher was 0.07%!

The guy the Expos traded away to get Pedro would have been a great answer for rarity.

https://i.postimg.cc/XqjSS0MF/IMG-5348.jpg

Like this.

https://streamable.com/mp0yhq

It just didn't work for me on the html-test thread. When I did http://imagelink, I got a broken link. Anyway, I'll probably just stick to links of photos (I like the photos).

There's your proof!

Clemenza you need to use the direct image link, you are using the page link. This is the one you need to paste:
https://i.postimg.cc/C5kPmqyM/IMG-5572.jpg

Okay, that should help...I'll fiddle around on the test thread later.

The guy the Expos traded away to get Pedro would have been a great answer for rarity.

Delino Deshields I think? Seemingly every player who played for the Expos in the 90s was traded to or from the Dodgers

looked it up and yes:

On November 19, 1993, DeShields was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for then-prospect Pedro Martínez. In retrospect, this is considered one of the worst trades in Dodgers history.[6]

oh sorry, should have hidden those last two posts

he was actually my best rarity pick on that one. i was very proud of myself!

Terrible! Enough said. Only good thing was finally getting Jim Bouton in there.

I threw away a guess on Stanton getting a silver slugger with the Yankees but I wasn’t getting that bottom middle one anyway so https://i.postimg.cc/wxs3vrss/IMG-5610.jpg

lol, i don't know how you land that answer for the Brewers/Mariners square, but forget the obvious Brewers/Marlins one!

this was my first 9/9 without the aid of a jays column.

🫣 who is the obvious pick?

As for the middle square, I watch the Mariners, I know all the guys

fair enough!

obvious pick for Brews/Marlins: Yelich!

https://i.postimg.cc/6p7NqNQP/4d5900bf-87aa-4a27-a737-4b9a6b2615a0.jpg

Probably the best I'll ever do: 9/9, Rarity Score of 50.

https://i.postimg.cc/YqbkmdgN/grid.jpg

I only remembered Carlos Pena because of Moneyball--and even there had to scroll through a number of Carloses and semi-guess--and with Mudcat Grant, I knew the Twins were right, but wasn't sure if I was mixing him up with the equally-colourfully-nicknamed Blue Moon Odom.

("...on the A's," that last sentence should continue.)

Classic backwards C pattern here, burned by my lack of Twins knowledge

https://i.postimg.cc/QdyxMPP6/IMG-5691.jpg

that's a quality recall on the TB/Jays pick

The only reason I know that is because i follow various baseball players on Instagram and saw him tagged on some photo, clicked through to the profile, he’s married to Tomi Lahren! Think he only played for like four years so easy to remember a couple of times

*Names not times!

i'll never forget his debut, but went on to disappoint more and more as time went on

btw, here is mine. best r score yet (86) https://i.imgur.com/mQj0uqo.jpg

I am way better at the nba version of this..

The rarity thing seems a little weird… I would think Pedro would be not an uncommon selection Re: notorious lol dodgers trade but (shrugs)

The rarity just rewards picking players from the century before this one. Tony Olivia is under 1% right now as the Twins' All-Star. Is Tony Olivia obscure? For the longest time, before Carew, Olivia and Killebrew were the first and maybe only two players you'd think of as Twins' All-Stars.

rarity of 102, not bad

https://i.imgur.com/fQj90j6.jpg

8/9, I really should have gotten the perfect score here, with two "stat" categories and only AL teams. I blanked on the middle square. Best pick: Willie Upshaw, the Jays first 100 RBI player, which only Jays fans from the 80's would remember.

I was going to try Upshaw or Barfield, but I wasn't 100% sure and didn't want to blow an easy one. If the Jays and 40 HR ever pops up, I'm ready and waiting with Tony Batista.

i don't know how i managed to forget carlos pena when i usually go through every scene of moneyball starring brad pitt whenever there's the A's, and i even remembered him as a tampa bay devil ray this time but my brain just wouldn't let me make the connection

*go through every scene in my head i don't actually watch the movie moneyball starring brad pitt every time the oakland athletics show up on the immaculate grid though i may be tempted

You could do worse

8/9, Rarity 225 because of one super-obvious answer.

https://i.postimg.cc/BbgdJw5w/grid.jpg

My incorrect Pirates/Royals guess was Milt May--scanning the list, I don't know if there's anybody obvious from the '70s or '80s I should have remembered...I wasn't going to come up with Don Slaught or Jim Rooker. Tried and tried not to answer Rose, gave in. I was going to take a chance on Hal Morris--.304--wasn't sure. A lot of HOF Reds, but mostly players I associate with other teams.

In the strike year of '81, Milt May got exactly one 10th-place vote for MVP, giving him a total of one MVP point in a 15-year career.

7/9 got screwed by Barry Bonds and Joey Votto's career BAs, rarest were Jonathan Sanchez for SF/KC, 1% and Ray Knight for CIN/NYM, 2%

I follow Votto pretty closely, so I knew he'd dropped below .300 the past couple of years.

7/9 for me too.

Jeremy Affeldt - x - Bill Terry
x - Bobby Bonilla - Paul Waner
Brandon Finnegan - Jay Bruce - Pete Rose

Rose is at 91%! I should have tried for the rarity pick here ...

Sorry! That last line should have been hidden.

He dragged it out so long, he just barely did make .300 at .303. Hal Morris has a higher lifetime average.

The reds one was my undoing

The Royals are who killed me in this one. Best rarity pick was Edd Roush for the Reds 300 avg

5/9 on this one, I thought I was starting to get good, oh well

Just randomly putting in Matt Stairs when I have no idea has worked out twice for me so far since I started playing this game

7/9

Only reason I didn’t get blanked by KC is knowing that Giants alumni Matt Duffy plays there
https://i.postimg.cc/nzdft6tZ/IMG-5771.jpg

7/9, lucky to get that considering some of the teams.

https://i.postimg.cc/25xPrVfp/grid.jpg

Incorrect guesses: LaTroy Hawkins for Rockies/Padres, Luis Gonzalez for D-Backs/30 SB--didn't even reach double-digits. Only good rarity answer: George Hendrick. Gaylord Perry's at 1% for Cleveland/San Diego, which is kind of silly considering he's a HOF'er who won a Cy Young for both teams.

Basketball and football versions of this now, hockey sure to follow. Could easily do one with bands. Actors and films. Politics and offices held. (Small-town Alaskan mayor/VP candidate.)

God, three franchises I try to ignore completely (COL/AZ/SD) and one that's mostly who cares after 1980 aside from the mid-90s (CLE).

5/9 - stolen bases were pretty easy Burks, Lofton, Pollock and I remembered Rick Wise for CLE/STL because I just read an article on the Steve Carlton trade and for STL/COL I got Daryl Kile because I had him in fantasy baseball once upon a time.

4/9 today, hard one today. Would have gotten 5/9 if I somehow didn't get the names of Ellis Burks and Lance Berkman mixed up.

So many cases of me remembering the player but not his name in this game. I like how these types of games really force me to go deep into my memories (another game that does this (except it's for movies) is boxofficega.me). It's a good mental workout.

The name I had to force myself to dredge up was Juan Pierre. Colorado and SB don't go together, but I remembered they had a high-average, non-power-hitting guy early on, so it was just a case of straining to find that name. Looked him up after, and he actually had 200 hits for three different teams in a seven year-span--wonder if that's unique. He came up four hits short the following year, else it would have been four teams in an eight-year span.

I only got one of the SB answers. Overall took a bit of a bath on this one at 5/9

Thought I was a sure-thing for 9/9, but couldn't come up with an Angel/Brave:

https://i.postimg.cc/pdgM9tRf/grid.jpg

Tried a Hail Mary with Clyde Wright--if he'd been right, I assume I would have had a Rarity Score under 50. Two of the players who crossed my mind, Garret Anderson and Ralph Garr, would have worked.

Consolation prize: Fidrych and Denny McLain.

Took me way too long staring at the screen to realize MVP and ROY didn't have to be the same season.

A rare 9/9
THANK YOU BALL FOUR. I would have been fucked by that, lol. I needed to know he eventually got out of that machine.

Matt Moore pitched for the Giants the year after Lincecum left and has worn 55 his whole career. He wore a different number while he was there. I saw him pitching for the Angels this season, like literally in the last week or so, and was like, I know who that guy is! I might still have his BR page open in an old tab.
https://i.postimg.cc/q7r7fwhg/IMG-5885.jpg

As ever, Buster Posey & Ian Kinsler my two reliables for various categories.

This is pretty funny...Just started today's; if you go on a few seconds after midnight, Ross Grimsley will come back as 100% of respondents.

https://i.postimg.cc/0jhCLFBZ/grid.jpg

Again thought 9/9 would be a cinch, missed Twins/Cubs--I managed to find one of the three teams Lee Smith didn't play for. As I scanned the list of right answers, I think I could have sat there till Monday and not come up with anything. There are names I thought of as I combed my memory for players I identify with one of the teams--Gary Gaetti, Bill Hands--but that's the problem, the association is only with one of them. Didn't want to answer Nelson Cruz, I like sticking with old guys, but I gave in.

Obviously I egregiously overthink this game. Less maddening than the Jays is my sole defense.

I am 8/8 and absolutely stuck on white Sox / Dodgers. I *must have* another 9/9!!

I could give you a clue for a gimme, but we don't want any kind of a scandal on our hands.

6/9, no need to discuss this non-effort
https://i.postimg.cc/d1pngQn7/IMG-6006.jpg

I'm exactly the same when I tank. I go through the seven stages of grieving, denial front and center.

I got it! 9/9 Yasmani Grandal!

I was thinking more of Tommy John, who actually had Cy-caliber seasons with both teams (the kind I'm most likely to get). But well done anyway.

8/9. There was no way I was getting Mariners/Rays, so I took a second try at Yankees/Rays. Wasted the first: Fred McGriff. I knew the Jays got him from the Yankees--along with Dave Collins!--but he never played a game for New York. I really should have known that.

https://i.postimg.cc/J4Yx7kwd/grid.jpg

Tampa Bay should be banned from this game.

damn, missed one because I typed Don Mattingly when I meant Wade Boggs

I was actually unsure whether Boggs was Tampa or Miami.

Miami should be banned from this game.

7/9. I am bad at this game. I also missed Mariners/Rays. When the grid has only AL teams I really should do better.

I had never really noticed that 300-save pitchers were fairly well travelled -- 31 pitchers, 162 teams, or 5.2 teams per pitcher. The only one who played for a single team his entire career was Mariano Rivera.

8/9

Thought Bernie might have been rarer than that but I guess his legend is spreading.
https://i.postimg.cc/4yy47C0Z/IMG-6019.jpg

If there's someone out there who missed the Yankees/Red Sox box, I want to meet them. "Well, there was this trade, you see--more like a sale, actually--and it didn't really work out for one of the teams..."

^ Which is not, bizarrely enough, the #1 answer (unless, like me, people are aiming for rarity and trying to outguess the game).

my choices today were mostly less rare, for the Yanks HOFer i did go with Rickey Henderson, which was a rare pick for that category at 1%. only other one under 10% was Rollie Fingers for 300+ saves. Made a memory guess w/Roberto Hernandez having played on the Rays, i knew he'd cleared 300 saves.

Second day in a row--the Paul Lynde square is killing me.

https://i.postimg.cc/Yqngg9hQ/grid.jpg

Once again I fall prey to the 200 hit trap. This time, Ted Williams; who I guess walked too often to ever get the achievement

My best game yet -- 9/9, rarity score 149. The middle square was a bit of a guess.

Edwing - JA Happ - Tony Fernandez
CC Sabathia - Matt Stairs - Paul Molitor
Jim Thome - Bobby Abreu - Henry Aaron

9/9, had to take a chance on John Olerud for the 200 hit Jay, luckily I had already used Roberto Alomar, who never hit 200 for CLE/TOR.

One of my better rarity picks on this one for Jays/Cleveland with pat tabler

Good one. Mark Whiten also crossed my mind later. If you have a good memory for trades--I don't--one big one can get you a whole bunch of names: In '91, Whiten, Denis Boucher, and Glenallen Hill went to Cleveland for Tom Candiotti and Turner Ward.

https://i.imgur.com/PYAQgzc.jpg

really couldn't think of anyone but the obvious for Philly/Toronto, got a solid rarity score of 127. My memory worked vv well for picking Randy Wolf

try that again:

https://i.imgur.com/PYAQgzc.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/BqYn1am.png

https://i.imgur.com/BqYn1am.png

7/9. I wasn't going to get A's/Mariners, but I should have been able to come up with somebody for A's/Astros. (My incorrect guess was...five minutes ago, and I can't even remember. Should have gone with Joe Morgan, who I thought of and flinched.)

https://i.postimg.cc/J0dwRgNB/grid.jpg

Nice rarity picks on your All-Stars. I also got 7/9 today, I missed twice on the Marlins.

8/9

https://i.postimg.cc/k54yshws/IMG-6273.jpg

(xpost) Gotta be the easiest category by a wide margin, especially for rarity. Basically, think of someone who played for Team X and was good.

got 9/9 - 177 rarity.
https://i.imgur.com/Ag0G3dM.jpg

while having to wait 9 hours was annoying, i doo appreciate they've moved the updates to 9am.

Gooden/Stewart/Saberhagen = 8%!

I'm mixed on the 9:00 posting. At least I'll occasionally get to bed before 1:00 a.m. now.

8/9

I could have maybe made a guess at the last one but I blew a guess on
https://i.postimg.cc/154Q6yRM/IMG-6334.jpg
40 SD homers, went for Tony Gwynn but no! Thankfully didn’t try for Manny.

Could have had Lincecum for SF/LAA but remembered who recruited him there in the first place.

Torii is a famous homophobe but damn he could field.

Real easy, but I tried to get clever for the Giants' 40-HR guy--guessed Hornsby, who it turns out was only there one year and hit 26. No more obscurity preoccupation! Speaking of which, I thought Garry Templeton, the other half of a certain celebrated trade--I've had him on mental file, just waiting--would be under 1% easy, and he came up 10%. Go figure.

https://i.postimg.cc/T1KHVvMx/grid.jpg

This is the fourth day in a row I've missed the centre square (although today, I used up a double-guess elsewhere). New strategy--bound to get lucky now and again.

https://i.postimg.cc/65FZMJR3/paul.jpg

Wow i should not have tried to be clever on the SF/40 hr question

proud of this one, 81 rarity

https://i.postimg.cc/vmkQ46RM/BEB9-A836-EAC1-4-A0-F-B193-203-DE0-DAAC63.jpg

the link, if the image isn't showing up for people: https://i.postimg.cc/vmkQ46RM/BEB9-A836-EAC1-4-A0-F-B193-203-DE0-DAAC63.jpg

Not shareable, but I have to: Posnanski's "immaculate immaculate grid," a rarity score of 3.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WPv7iFioCMvX7_XJObJn56eb2HULeHiTFFCtrRu-New/edit?usp=sharing

"From now on, I’m going to pick the obvious players and just get through it." My thought too, as soon as I manage one rarity score under 50.

9/9, rarity 86

https://i.imgur.com/vBkGLPI.jpg

Garry Templeton was a vivid memory for me, based on a very crucial trade he was involved in.

Fred Lynn i remembered had played some forgotten years for the Padres.

Raffy P winning that phantom gold glove w/Texas is helpful in this category once more.

9/9, 133

https://i.imgur.com/Evh0xhC.png

I wish Karl Malone were on this thread so he could chime in with funny Miles Mikolas stories (who I see won 18 games once and I have either completely forgotten or somehow never heard of).

Tough today! 7/9

Thank God for the Core Four.
https://i.postimg.cc/QMBrRkB1/IMG-6402.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/4dmTRvmp/IMG-6401.jpg

Ugh. Walter Johnson for Rangers 200-K guy--wrong Washington Senators. Then I fell into the "'70s fireballer" trap I mentioned earlier in this thread and guessed Jim Bibby--149 K in his best season. Thoroughly disgusted, I moved over to Tigers/Reds and fell into the "ace utility guy who plays for everyone" trap and guessed Tony Phillips. So I never went near two of the Colorado boxes, which I'm sure I would have missed anyway.

tanked the last three because trying to think about the Rockies or Pirates wasn't getting me anywhere

https://i.imgur.com/9G5qlPj.png

Today's had to be the easiest one yet, a gimme 9/9...so I'm embarrassed to say I fluffed my first guess. I thought Tony Conigliaro played for both Sox teams--it was California he went over to, not Chicago. I'm pleading grogginess because of the new morning posting.

https://i.postimg.cc/Pf19VRPz/grid.jpg

Baltimore only having four Cy Young winners is a bit of a surprise, in view of how good those '70s staffs were. They haven't had one since 1980...Palmer did win three, I should add.

7/9, only got cos I watch so much Red Sox
https://i.postimg.cc/T116vVyg/IMG-6491.jpg

I like that you had Spahn in there...I realize now I mixed up Ken Harrelson with Conigliaro--dumb. Blame Zander Hollander's 1970 baseball guide, the first one I ever bought (I will shift the blame somewhere for every mistake I make...Didn't try White Sox/Braves, but I thought about it for a few seconds and would have gotten Ralph Garr.

9/9, sub-50 rarity: it's my #1 goal in life right now.

i honestly wouldn’t have remembered Spahn if I hadn’t watched both Braves-Sox games this week, they were talking about the Boston Braves!

Amazingly, he only missed playing for the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves by two years.

CY for the CWS is just one of those i would never have a chance of getting as someone whose baseball memory gets really hazy before the late 90s. took an unconfident stab at sale. he never finished higher than 3rd with them!

9/9, sub-50 rarity: it's my #1 goal in life right now.

lol i can only dream

jamie macoun only works in hockey

new to this so still focusing more on filling the grid than going for rarity but i'll take it
9/9 - 205 rarity
literally trying to recall my long-discarded 70s era baseball card collections in 2023 but alas my memory is going to shit rapidly

8/9. Never got to the lower middle box (which I wouldn't have gotten anyway) because my first guess at the Dodgers' 3000-K guy was wrong--Kershaw! I'd already used Scherzer, so I figured I'd settle for the sure thing...he's sitting at 2,912. I almost bailed in disgust at that point. I was left with two Arizona boxes and one remaining guess, so I just defaulted to Rodney for the middle box and got lucky.

https://i.postimg.cc/HkRnr2C2/grid.jpg

The idea here is better than the actual execution:

https://phildellio.tripod.com/seinfeld.jpg

I'd completely forgotten that Randy Johnson spent two seasons with the Yankees...maybe I would have dredged that up with enough concentration.

Ya, I totally botched the Dodgers & Yankees 3,000 Ks as well. So I was only able to get 6/9 - however I set a person best single-cell rarity score of 0.08 for Brendan Harris on Twins/Nationals

7/9, and I realized afterward that all except for one is a HOFer or a future HOFer. In fact, the entire grid could be completed using just HOFers or future HOFers, I don't think that's happened since I started playing.

Scratch that, there isn't a Yanks-Twins HOFer.

Winfield; going back (had to check the list), also Lefty Gomez and Clark Griffith.

should have probably hidden that dude.

Damn, sorry.

https://i.imgur.com/SFaRh4H.png

Definitely very easy today. The most interesting thing for me was an infamous trade: I wasn't sure if Sandberg actually played with the Phillies, or if I'd fall into the same trap I did with McGriff and the Jays/Yankees. It was my last guess, so I took a chance--and he did get in 6 AB with the Phillies in '83.

Confession: my very first guess was wrong because I mistook the Cleveland logo for Cincinnati. So I took a mulligan and moved to a different device. I know I will pay dearly for this in bad karma over the coming weeks and months.

https://i.postimg.cc/Y92JCgF1/grid.jpg

I really thought I'd do much better on rarity with Murray and Brock. I didn't think Murray's time with Cleveland would be well remembered, and with Brock and the Cubs, another infamous trade that brought him to the Cardinals. I am, of course, very proud of Jim Konstanty, who got a chapter in one of the first baseball books I ever read, Baseball's MVPs or something, so old I can't find an online image. Got my copy signed by Robin Roberts somewhere.

Classic inverted staircase formation, dud besides

Ryan Sweeney, there’s no fucking way I’m explaining how I got that one because it’s embarrassing.

https://i.postimg.cc/J7gdchQq/IMG-6670.jpg
3000 hits is so fucking rare, there can’t be that many guys out there surely?

Current scorecard:

3,000 hits -- 33 players
500 HR - 28 players
300 wins - 24 players

I can see 500 HR maybe passing 3,000 hits at some point.

I'll throw in 300 saves, which was still relatively rare up to the late '90s: 31 players.

Confession: my very first guess was wrong because I mistook the Cleveland logo for Cincinnati.

8/9, but I really messed up on A's/Guardians.

I got that one because of, once again, Moneyball.

Yes, that's exactly how I messed up -- I tried to remember that well traveled reliever from Moneyball and came up with the wrong name.

i got some good rarity picking Von Hayes for Philly and Cleveland, and Mitch Williams for Philly and the Cubs. Even better when I remembered Mike Morgan had time with both the Cubs and A's. Picked the same players as Clem for 3000 hits + Cubs and Cleveland, i also did think they'd be less remembered but maybe the options were limited there.

Damn, wish I'd remembered the Wild Thing--every Jays fan loves the guy. Definitely limited: only Speaker, Lajoie, Murray, and Winfield for Cleveland, and Anson, Brock, and Palmeiro for the Cubs--so only three modern-day guys, and two were just passing through town.

9/9

"easy" but had to consider Cub/A's all day before it came to me.
https://i.imgur.com/WffgYSS.jpg

surprised my pick for MVP/3000 was at only 2% (as was gyac's) - but even the most popular pick was just 15%, so i guess that got spread around fairly evenly.

Both Anson and Speaker, nice. I lose track of who many of those old guys played for.

figured you'd appreciate the black and white photos!

Before I mess this up, I want history to record that I'm sitting at 8/8, 32.9% rarity. I'm going to go about my day and hope that inspiration strikes from above--or from below, or from anywhere--for the Angels/Mariners. (The fact that they're two west coast teams is jamming things up.)

8/9

https://i.postimg.cc/mZpvxL3z/IMG-6729.jpg

I am so bad at stolen base stuff. I was like, who’s a fast Blue Jay? Bo? Put his name in, didn’t work, abandoned that one. Idc.

RED SOX TWITTER HATE FIGURE/PITCHING COACH DAVE BUSH COMING THROUGH FOR ME 🫧🫧🫧

also, Ball Four continues to deliver!

Also also every time I’ve watched Trout play I’m always delighted by how fast he moves on the basepaths. I’m so happy he’s actually even better at stealing than I’d thought.

I feel you clem ... I was 7/7 with a good rarity score, then guessed wrong on Angels/Mariners. I lost my motivation to guess on the final box after that.

Done! Ticker-tape parade! 9/9, rarity 42.

https://i.postimg.cc/N0qNH0gF/grid.jpg

Even better, both Bouton and Mick the Quick in there. Wasn't 100% sure about Langston, but took a shot. I gave in to currency with Swanson and Teoscar, but didn't get dinged too badly on rarity for either.

That's it for rarity--Like Posnanski, unless someone occurs to me almost immediately, I'll just go for right answers from now on.

Same with me when I fluff an answer--I often go on to miss one or two more because I'm sulking.

Just looked at gyac's--glad you remembered Bouton!

I think you used him the other day and it was totally obvious given that trade literally happens in the book but I’ve used him and Steve Barber before! I can’t play for rarity but I’ll take it if it happens.

The trick is remembering that the Pilots became the Brewers, which I sometimes forget.

congrats clem!!!
i got off to a great rarity start (some surprising me). and then flubbed my astros answers.
kicking myself at how many i could have gotten and made use of the rare answers i got...
https://i.imgur.com/njz8Z7V.jpg

I never would have guessed Shawn Green in a million years, even though I just posted about him and Delgado as described in the Astros cheating book, how Green would steal second specifically so he could--legally--steal and flash signs to Delgado.

I’d just been reading about 30/30 players (surprised how many one-time jays there were); which is the only reason I got him plus my Astros answer.

https://i.imgur.com/xLaX5ap.png

one of these days i'll get all sub-10%!

trying again

https://i.imgur.com/xLaX5ap.png

As a Seinfeld fan, I'm just waiting for my chance to fill in a Yankees/Mariners box, with Larry David's voice ringing in my ears.

7/9 today, but probably my best ever rarity score except for the two misses (41% for the seven correct answers, 22% of that was for one player).

8/9. I’m actually really surprised by that cos on first glance I didn’t think I was getting anything. Two things that came through for me today

https://i.postimg.cc/wBBdFq5H/IMG-6799.jpg

Instagram: I follow/look at a lot of player’s pages on Instagram, so I knew bad LHP reliever Richard Bleier (currently a Red Sox) has moved around a bit.

I also looked at Nate Eovaldi’s wife’s Instagram after reading about her infamous bakes for clubhouses and was able to pull my second answer from having seen this: https://www.instagram.com/p/CUAvUwOreRS/

Mike McCormick I know about only because he is the Giants’ only other Cy Young winner ever - so I read up about him a while ago.

Otherwise business as usual with ex Giants filling in some gaps.

i think i broke the grid

https://i.postimg.cc/LXLSyqMp/IMG-5612.jpg

I'm sure it's my imagination, but it feels like the Mariners show up way too often--more than their expansion partner the Jays do, anyway. They're responsible for me wiping out today.

Did have my rarest pick ever, at 0.09%: Nelson Briles for the Pirates/Royals. Also Moe Drabowsky for O's/Royals at 0.5%, and any day you can get Moe Drabowsky in there can't be a bad day. He gets two of the best stories in Ball Four: ordering takeout from China on the bullpen phone, and, if I'm remembering correctly, the other one I won't repeat.

Sorry, Seattle...it occurred to me hours later that that's the Marlins logo on there, not the Mariners, explaining my 0-3 for that column. So I'm calling Logo Mulligan #2 and will try again later.

Transferred my six correct answers to a different device, tried again. Don't know why I thought the Marlins would be any easier than the Mariners, but I did manage to fill in one more box:

https://i.postimg.cc/pXXN741P/grid.jpg

Damn--under 15% rarity for the seven correct answers.

I realize the appeal of this game does have an expiry date: whenever the moment comes where you realize you're just recycling answers. I'm kind of hoping they throw in Comeback Player of the Year one day, maybe even 50+ Career Game-Winning RBI. Something to get everybody really riled up.

Was totally stuck on the Rangers team answers. Stewed about it all day before taking a flier on Soria for the royals and then remembering Brown for the marlins.
Got it with a 77 rarity score!

xpost In that case all trivia games have an expiry date, you don't really have to "know" anything, you only need to practice memorization. But that's a good skill to have!

(xpost) I don't think I've thought of Kevin Brown once while playing this game, which is dumb: he's a borderline HOF'er who didn't just play for a number of different teams, he pitched well for them--4.0+ bWAR seasons for five different teams. No idea why I never think of him.

(xpost) True enough, but general trivia is infinite; this game would seem to have more of a ceiling on what you need to know, which is to have one go-to answer ready for every conceivable box (assuming they stick to the same tried-and-true benchmarks and awards). You wouldn't need to keep learning stuff if you can streamline and retain. Yankees/Cubs? Memorize one player and use that one every time.

One of those internal dialogues here, sorry...Actually, that's precisely why general trivia games are infinite--say a competition you go to, where you never know what the questions will be--whereas a store-bought board game of Trivial Pursuit, with a finite set of cards, can get boring eventually.

Another easy one. I said I wouldn't pay any mind to rarity any more, but after my first seven answers, I was sitting at 11.9%; I went with Sandoval for Red Sox/Giants, thinking that wouldn't be too bad, and that killed that. So I just went with the obvious Bench guess for Reds ROY.

https://i.postimg.cc/3rc9ZCY5/grid.jpg

Damn--thought of both Ellis Burks and Jack Clark for Red Sox/Giants, just wasn't sure.

https://i.imgur.com/TI1lQ4b.png

rarity score: 37(!)

god knows how i pulled Greg Swindell out of my memory but there you go.

You've laid down the gauntlet. I was living a deluded, self-satisfied life with my 42 Rarity, now I must hit the mattresses. (Because Immaculate Grid and The Godfather lend itself to a mixed metaphor.)

That is impressive--Swindell was Clemens Jr. for at least one year, but he was out of sight, out of mind for me after that.

8/9
https://i.postimg.cc/wBgkQzB9/IMG-6880.jpg

Jack Clark is to clemenza as Buster Posey, Ian Kinsler and Sergio Romo are to me

I successfully remembered some guys

https://i.imgur.com/tJQmAml.png

holy crap – 37 rarity! omar little is the new undisputed champ of ilbb!!

i got 8/9 and today and was foiled by my inability to stop confusing Terry Pendleton and Garry Templeton! (i know it's not really a spoiler, but just incase) nation league left side infielders from the 80's, both one-time Cards who's name go like "-rry --leton". my brain can't cope. i hate it.

8/9

https://i.postimg.cc/GhgdP0R8/IMG-6935.jpg

Was drawing a complete blank on the Nationals line before I was like WAIT WEREN’T THEY THE EXPOS I CAN USE GUERRERO SR THANK FUCK

Otherwise no interesting or rare picks and therefore nothing else to say

omar little is the new undisputed champ of ilbb!!

Out on the road, still periodically working on today's.

I don't want to sound like Andy Hardy, but we should have an inhouse tournament over a few days. Double-elimination, honour system. From following this thread, everyone has strengths and weaknesses. I don't know Jays history as deeply and Thermo and NoTime, can't keep up with gyac on current rosters, don't know baseball cards like (I think) Milo, and omar might be in another league. Etc., etc. So luck would play a part. First grid with one of the last four franchises would be my Kramer I'm-out-of-the-contest day.

By all means you have my blessing & thanks for the acknowledgment, look forward to my first-round exit

Anyone who's interested, please post here.

Aaargh--almost beat Omar, even though it would have required an asterisk with nothing but awards and benchmarks...Had 26.2% rarity going into my final answer, Silver Slugger/.300 career average. The biggest problem was I wasn't sure when the Silver Slugger awards began--I was thinking '90s but wasn't sure. It was actually 1980. Anyway, I guessed Ichiro, and his 13% pushed me over. Thing is, there are 33 correct answers, many/most of them really obvious (and who would also have been obviously lower than 13% for rarity.

https://i.postimg.cc/qqnCkb9F/grid.jpg

C'mon, tournament--you people are no fun.

9/9!

https://i.postimg.cc/qvtZBm73/IMG-6979.jpg

I don’t think I used a single new player today but my guesses today I’d used on some of the previous award categories. Paul Goldschmidt I didn’t know he was a Gold Glover but he won MVP & is a good 1B, that’s the closest to a guess I made.

I also got this rarity score and I never bother to note this cos I don’t play for that apart from trying to maybe use a rarer pick if I know one, but this might be my first score below 100. Obvs rarity is kind of a joke when some of these guys are literal HoFers.

https://i.postimg.cc/7Zpt5gCQ/IMG-6978.png

i'll gladly be a 16th seed in a tournament

8/9 on the no-teams grid. My final (incorrect) guess for the perfect score on MVP-Gold Glove was Aaron Judge .

Can't believe how good you guys are at this!

I thought I'd been paying attention while watching baseball all these years but apparently it has all sifted through me.

We've got three, me, gyax, and X--one more at least for lift-off.

easiest one since i started doing this, 56 rarity not too shabby

holy shit. just beat my best rarity score, just coming in under 50 at 49!

https://i.imgur.com/8KOZjx1.jpg

Great scores. I was good through six guesses, I think, got the seventh right but blew a low rarity, then made a mistake and basically gave up (wild incorrect guess for the last one). I really do struggle with the Rays.

I don't think anybody actually played for the Rays until about 2012, b-ref just gives guys a few games there to keep up appearances

Gyac and X: why don't we just do a week-long thing starting tomorrow. Anyone else who wants to join in, please do so. Total score wins, rarity only used to break a tie. Honor system, of course; you don't have to do your grid in one sitting, but if you don't, don't go off and read baseball books or check boxscores or watch a game--you'll stumble over an answer. And this one's meant for me: check logos before you start. If you mess up, as I have twice, no re-dos.

Post and hide your daily grid here, as always.

I have laid down the gauntlet for anyone who wants to join in: 9/9, rarity 146. I gave in on a couple of easy guesses, including the most obvious of all. The one I wasn't sure of was my last answer, centre square: I knew 100% that Pepitone was a Cub, but I thought I might be falling prey to Ball Four-love by thinking he played for the Astros--maybe all the Pepitone stories in there were from his Yankee days? I know Christian Javier because I've been talking about his 6/9th of a WS no-hitter all year.

https://i.postimg.cc/1zSYfb6Z/grid.jpg

Actually, looking at the most common answers, Ryan probably isn't the most obvious pick; that'd be Pujols. I thought of Edmonds right away for Angels/Cards--never even got to Pujols.

7/9 not my best effort

https://i.postimg.cc/pV9HZGqT/IMG-7093.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/qMydftfH/IMG-7094.jpg

Embarrassingly I only know two of these cos I watch lots of baseball on TV; Martín Maldonado I was literally on his br page yesterday; Carlos Peña because I got tired of the repetitive Hall of Fame Connections ads on mlb.tv and looked up who he was

Whoever devises these seems to have an inordinate fondness for 300 saves--feels like it's the third or fourth time it's come up in the past month.

Speaking of which, I wanted to answer Tom Henke for 300/WS, but his career was shorter than most great closers, so I wasn't sure if he got there...311, it turns out. Off to see Oppenheimer, thankfully without that centre square on my mind for the whole film.

8/9, missed the centre square. Rarity score 211. Was doing OK on rarity until the final guess.

https://i.imgur.com/Svk4nA8.png

i always remember george hendrick for some reason. rarity score of 95

Honest to god, omar, I almost guessed Hendrick for Cards/Angels, just wasn't confident enough about the Angels side of it. I'm adding you two guys to the standings; you'll have to take me to court to get your names removed.

omar and felicity will hate me... i swear we even got WGN sometimes in my podunk hometown.

https://i.imgur.com/9k0VNCq.png

I just remembered that your lower right would have worked for upper middle and lower middle!

60 rarity score today
https://i.postimg.cc/k51Q7mDm/365164907-303883462322466-6850036432471994376-n.jpg

You've taken over the lead. (Yes, you have no choice.) 100 points of rarity are added for every missed answer, right?

Here are the standings after Day 1 (I'll reconfigure if anyone else posts results). Obviously, I'm kidding about forced participation--if you want to be removed, no problem.

Name                  Record                  GBL                  Rarity
voodoo chili            9-0                    --                    60
omar little             9-0                    --                    95
clemenza                9-0                    --                   146
notime                  8-1                   1.0                   211
gyac                    7-2                   2.0                   305
steve shasta            6-3                   3.0                   460

I will come crashing down to earth as soon as one of the Final Four (franchises) appears, where my ceiling will pretty much be 7/9. If two of them are ever on the same grid, I'll be lucky to get 5/9.

8/9, 140--made the same #$%& mistake with the Rangers again, thinking they used to be the old Washington Senators and naming Walter Johnson as their 20-game winner (after boxing myself in by already using Fergie Jenkins elsewhere). Wrong Senators! That's actually a difficult question, especially after wasting Fergie. Only two others: Kevin Brown, who did cross my mind (but I think of Brown as one of the first starters who was usually great without ever winning 20), and Rick Helling, who I don't remember at all.

https://i.postimg.cc/BbbzmLYx/grid.jpg

That was the one time Kevin Brown won 20. In other seasons, he finished 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 6th in Cy Young voting while winning between 13 and 18 games, which at the time--1996-2000--was still a little unusual.

8/9


https://i.postimg.cc/QM1ZW11f/IMG-7177.jpg
A pretty decent showing only cos I got to use two of my guys that I’ve always got in the back of my mind. Arencibia i used before & I know nothing about his very short career apart from the three teams he played for, all beginning with T, and the fact he’s married to Tomi Lahren.

Brandon Morrow! The guy Mariners fans still hate the organisation for drafting instead of Tim Lincecum! Mariners ruined him by using him in relief and then he went to Toronto and thrived for a while! That guy!

Joely Rodriguez would literally be nowhere near this except I was looking at his BR page quite literally this morning (he was on the Red Sox page singing).

I thought Nolan Ryan would be a 20 win guy but apparently not?

https://i.postimg.cc/CL5ysWbB/IMG-7176.jpg

I'm gonna guess that today's was particularly easy because I was able to 9/9 it (247 rarity though).

https://i.imgur.com/hAt30iU.png

Billy Beane!

I find it extremely funny he has the same supposed rarity as Zito

haha now that there are standings i guess i’ll post my results more often. before i just came in to brag whenever i got 9/9

This is all very, very official--we're on Day 2 of a seven-day season.

159 rarity score

https://i.postimg.cc/wBxRN6FP/immaculate-grid-8-8-2023.jpg

got a wrong answer because i assumed pat hentgen had 200 ks in his cy young winning '96 season for the jays, turns out he was short. pre-analytics baseball was crazy, how the hell are you gonna win the cy young with fewer than 200 ks???

i was particularly proud of my aaron sele pull, the rarest answer i've gotten yet! thought of him when trying to recall rangers 20-game winners, wasn't sure if he ever reached that milestone but i did remember him spending a season or two with the mets.

ah shit, can a mod hide the second sentence there?

xp lollin' @ (2,1) pic from voodoochile

I am almost positively sure I'm no longer a mod here but I can see if I have mod powers.

It appears all of my modprivs have been revoked.

9/9, rarity 195. Since rarity is only the tiebreaker I didn't try to be a hero with my picks, I just wanted the perfect score.

Nolan Ryan, Marcus Semien, Kevin Brown

Justin Verlander, David Price, Hal Newhauser

David Cone, Roger Clemens, Clayton Kershaw

Nooooo, some of that text obviously should have been hidden. Any mods around who can fix it?

Two people forgetting to hide text in a single day? We might have some sort of Astros-level scandal on our hands here.

As I posted earlier, 200+ strikeouts is a really tricky category for me, because I always want to name relatively forgotten guys from the '70s, never being sure if they ever reached the now meaningless benchmark of 200. I took a chance with Jon Matlack today, and got really lucky--205 was his career high, only time he was ever over 200.

xp for some reason the tag doesn’t work when you add a line break :(

Updated (and awaiting omar):

Name                  Record                  GBL                  Rarity
voodoo chili           17-1                    --                   219
clemenza               17-1                    --                   286
notime                 17-1                    --                   406
gyac                   15-3                   2.0                   453
steve shasta           15-3                   2.0                   707
omar little             9-0                                          95

I'm leading the Popularity contest lol

omar little: Why Did They Retire?

8/9, 179. Dumb--for Twins ROY, I overthought Tony Oliva. I would have told you yesterday he had one of the greatest rookie seasons ever, but when I put his name in, I noticed his career started in 1962; I associate his season with 1964, with Dick Allen's rookie season over in the N.L. even, so I wondered if it was one of those cases where he missed qualifying because of a couple of earlier late-season call-ups. No. (Carew also crossed my mind.) So I went with Kent Hrbek...who finished second to Ripken in 1982.

https://i.postimg.cc/QdqjP0JL/grid.jpg

7/9, far from my best work

https://i.postimg.cc/g0V7jmCQ/IMG-7238.jpg

Only consolation was getting to use Giants postseason legend Travis Ishikawa before. I learned he was a Yankee from seeing him called “Yankees legend Travis Ishikawa” on Twitter. Always forget Cutch was a Yankee for that half season.

My Twins knowledge is AWFUL outside the current team plus yr Morneau/Mauer type guys and even then I’m still going to miss out on “he played for them?!” type shit.

https://i.postimg.cc/RFvDn29F/IMG-7237.jpg

I really wanted to get someone other than Bonds for Giants GG--even though I liked having both father and son in my middle column. I should have trusted instinct and gone with J.T. Snow; just wasn't sure if he was stuck in the era of some other famous defensive whiz at first. Also wanted to avoid Jeter and Judge for Yankees ROY, but as with Oliva, I flinched on Munson.

Yeah I could have thought of any number of names but wanted to use a different choice than the guys I use all the time, I’m not playing this game to win

I used Will Clark for my Gold Glove/Silver Slugger overlap the other day, you could also have the guy I use probably the most, Buster Posey, Robby Thompson, Mays…this is also how I learned McCovey never won one.

Thought of Posey, not the others.

Being an arrogant, heterosexual male, I'm 1000% playing to win.

I got cocky and thought this would be an easy one... 7/9 328R

https://i.imgur.com/1zIBJPM.png

Back to yesterday's puzzle, I found it absurd that my pick for 200+ K season and 20+ Win season would only have a 2% rarity!

7/9, 377R.

My wrong answers were both on the ROY/GG, with four guesses left I had to strategically give up on that square or risk crashing and burning the whole game.

ROY is such a trap. Griffey finished third behind Gregg Olson and Tom Gordon.

Yup. Francisco Liriano finished 3rd in 2006 AL ROY votes to Justin Verlander despite Francisco leading Justin in fWAR, bWAR, ERA, WHIP, Ks, BBs allowed, etc. He did trail Verlander in the all-mighty Wins (17 vs. 12) which probably was the #1 informer of ROY votes at the time sadly

Also when I said in today's post "this would be an easy one"... I'm saying that as someone who was a Pirates fan from birth - 1992 and a Giants fan from 1993 - 2007.

I'm sure Liriano deserved it, but I meant it's more commonly a trap in the other direction, with future HOF'ers finishing behind guys who went on to have journeyman careers.

rarity score 151

https://i.postimg.cc/FKCDVKVP/immaculate-grid-8-9.jpg

^ Also in it to win.

I can update already--I guess omar wanted to leave Costanza-like, on a high note.

Name                  Record                  GBL                  Rarity
voodoo chili           26-1                    --                    370
clemenza               25-2                   1.0                    465
notime                 24-3                   2.0                    783
gyac                   22-5                   4.0                    773
steve shasta           22-5                   4.0                   1035

Best division in baseball.

Also when I said in today's post "this would be an easy one"... I'm saying that as someone who was a Pirates fan from birth - 1992 and a Giants fan from 1993 - 2007.

A fan of the game (admittedly my allegiances focus around fantasy/dynasty) but root for Yakult Swallows in NBP. Married to a Giants/A's fan so the offspring are all following in Mom's footsteps, at least until the A's move.

the Giants/Twins one is giving me fits rn

I feel that such moments are inflection points, where people are never heard from again.

"Remember that guy Thermo on I Love Baseball? Whatever happened to him?"
"He hangs out on a park bench, all day, supposedly, rocking back and forth and muttering 'Giants/Twins, Giants/Twins.'"

as if i'd make it outside

8/9 but ok considering the cursed

Rockies!

https://i.postimg.cc/NFXxMV7J/IMG-7305.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/dQZ64kP2/IMG-7304.jpg

I would like to thank Jorge Alfaro for being the worst big league catcher I’ve ever seen this year.

This was v. hard (for me), feel lucky to have got 6/9 R458.

https://i.imgur.com/Ylwscwo.png

I'm 6/6 so far, but I've put it aside for a while. Colorado and Seattle boxes of course doing me in.

I like that they've added a "give up" tab--now they need a "please kill me" one for when it gets really bad.

Oh also

Baltimore - I knew 40 wasn’t Cal Ripken because I’m pretty sure this came up for the Orioles before and someone on Twitter was like, he played a million years and never hit 40?! After that I was like, idk, Machado? And that was the only guess I could make.

Steve Shasta


https://assets.sbnation.com/assets/575492/image002.jpg

I guessed a different guy from the same rotation, makes me want to look up everyone else’s teams for future use now (except Roy’s who I obviously know)

i messed up Colorado's HR square by confusing Vinny Castilla with Luis Castillo

9/9, 176--I'm making my move. My final two guesses were 1) the most obvious of all, A-Rod (I wasn't holding back, just didn't think of him for some reason, and 2) my one Hail Mary, Jose Mesa. I was looking at Mesa and Jesse Orosco's career boxes the other day, thinking I have to use one of these guys at some point. I knew Mesa was a Phillie, just guessed on Colorado--if anyone was meant to end up with the Rockies, it was Mesa. Not surprised at all by Brady Anderson's 25% as the Orioles' 40-HR guy, which I bet is higher than Frank Robinson; everyone remembers how silly that was.

https://i.postimg.cc/tgM9W3LK/grid.jpg

Two ancient guys I knew if I'd thought about and wished I'd used: Frank Howard for the Rangers/Senators' 40-HR guy, Jim Gentile for the Orioles'.

7/9, R372. This was a tough one for me (and for most people it seems).

I somehow remembered that Jamie Moyer ended his career with the Rockies and picked him for the Rockies-Mariners. It turns out that Moyer is a correct answer for any of the six team combinations.

Where's our front-runner?

Hopefully vc will show up before tomorrow's grid--I want to come from behind "The Giants win the pennant!" style, but I can't be the Giants without a Dodgers in front of me.

Name                  Record                  GBL                  Rarity
clemenza               34-2                    --                    641
notime                 31-5                   3.0                   1055
gyac                   30-6                   5.0                   1028
steve shasta           28-8                   6.0                   1493
voodoo chili           26-1                                          370

went 8/9 with 205 rarity

Great, will add that on along with today's...which is the doomsday grid for me: the Diamondbacks and the Marlins, and no awards or benchmarks.

4/9 601R, oof.

8/9

https://i.postimg.cc/5NzHrPmS/IMG-7377.jpg

You’re absolutely goddamn right I know the name of every catcher, journeyman or otherwise, Tim Lincecum ever threw to on the Giants! Chris Stewart also a Pirates legend ofc.

https://i.postimg.cc/cLNKGQ9y/IMG-7376.jpg

7/9, 242R, by some kind of miracle. I saw the grid and figured I'd get five correct if I was lucky. After the fact, I thought the most popular picks were all kind of obvious, but I couldn't come up with any of them except for two.

Formatting might be weird here until I figure out how to post screenshots and/or not mess up the html.

Edwin Jackson, Tim Hudson, Edgar Renteria // Tony Womack, Kenny Lofton, x // Adam Dunn, Jeremy Affeldt, x

5/9, 424--this is a stupid game, I hate Arizona, and I hate Miami. I got three rare Giants within a minute, then two Marlins fairly easily sticking to well-known players. And then I hit a wall. I went out kayaking for an hour, my designated time for contemplating the mysteries of the universe; instead, my only thought was "Diamondbacks, Diamondbacks." (Scans just like "Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum" from Seinfeld). Nothing.

https://i.postimg.cc/50zZzJ9L/grid.jpg

9/9 (sorry, been too busy to dig deep into my brain to keep up with this game)

https://i.imgur.com/oDPG9gk.png

rarity score of 82. i almost tricked myself by picking Alex Gonzalez for the Cubs and Marlins, that's a dangerous duo. They're virtually the same player in addition to having the same name, and as a Cubs fan both are ingrained in my mind. My one kinda blind guess was Edwin Jackson, I was kinda sure but not totally.

I never knew that Andre Dawson played for the Marlins! That's a good one to remember.

he was my favorite player as a kid, i followed him closely! he didn't do particularly well, but i remember it specifically because it was weird to see him in that uni.

back on my feet again

9/9, 91 rarity

https://i.postimg.cc/T2kCjdmY/immaculate-grid-8-11-23.jpg

Okay, adding vc's scores for yesterday and today, I can update now. Omar, what could have been...

Name                  Record                  GBL                  Rarity
voodoo chili           43-2                    --                    666
clemenza               39-6                   4.0                   1065
gyac                   38-7                   5.0                   1194
notime                 38-7                   5.0                   1297
steve shasta           32-13                 11.0                   2094

I normally wouldn't call attention to the rarity score of 666, but it's a guy named voodoo, so I think I have to. Getting very close in the middle, and gyac takes over third on rarity. Two more days. We can call it there, or do a quick playoff (with a bye to first-place).

Did I mention I think the Diamondbacks and Marlins are stupid?

I think I might have gotten one of my incorrect answers, Wade Miley, mixed up with Shelby Miller.

9/9, R146. Could have taken more risks on rarity, because I think you'll all get 9/9 on this one.

Wrong! 8/9!

https://i.postimg.cc/2516fQqC/IMG-7418.jpg

Total unforced error on the Pedro placement.
https://i.postimg.cc/bJbwZqHM/IMG-7417.jpg

9/9, 74. Same as notime--if you don't get hung up on rarity, exceptionally easy. Couple of things, though: because I used Seaver for the Mets/Red Sox box, I didn't have him available for Boston's 300-game winner. I really didn't want to use Clemens, so I thought long and hard on Lefty Grove. God's honest truth: I thought I had his exact W-L record memorized--300-141; it used to fascinate me--but I wasn't sure. Worked out. I also wanted to avoid Clemens/Johnson/Ryan for the top left, so I took a chance on Sutton, and that worked out too.

https://i.postimg.cc/qqmfjF4B/grid.jpg

Never in a million years would I have guessed that Rick Porcello would be my least rare answer. He's surrounded by eight HOF'ers.

First 9/9 today

9/9, 108 rarity

Apparently 3,000k, cy young winners wasn’t the slam dunk I though it was.

One thing about 3,000 K: except for Walter Johnson, none of the early guys got there--Young, Mathewson, Alexander, Grove, none of them. Not even Feller or Spahn. The earliest guy after Johnson is Gibson.

this was easy for me but too many obvious (30%+) answers. any rarity score under 100 is impressive for this one

Steve Shasta pending:

Name                  Record                  GBL                  Rarity
voodoo chili           52-2                    --                    774
clemenza               48-6                   4.0                   1139
notime                 47-7                   5.0                   1443
gyac                   46-8                   6.0                   1435
steve shasta           32-13                                        2094

Last day tomorrow. I need to know vc's blind spot, maybe I can get in touch with someone about tomorrow's grid.

my blind spot is gold glove and silver slugger, haven’t had one of those in a while though

Then you're in luck again today...

8/9, 104--I missed a Pilots question! I was positive Lou Pinella would work for the Brewers/Royals box, but I'd forgotten that Seattle traded him before the season started. (He went on to win ROY.) Gave it another try with Marty "How Do You Hold Your Gopher Balls?" Pattin, got that one. My eight correct answers had a rarity of under 5%--I could have been there with Posnanski. Anyway, I think I've clinched second, just waiting for a meltdown from voodoo.

https://i.postimg.cc/VNkqRMQT/grid.jpg

Miserable. 6/9.

https://i.postimg.cc/GhfK9GFg/IMG-7471.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/Z5ycNnjb/IMG-7472.jpg

I never did try Tigers/Royals. Some interesting answers: Johnny Damon, Juan Gonzalez, A.J. Hinch, Hideo Nomo, none of whom I ever would have gotten. I think, if I sat there for two or three day, I might have come up with Kirk Gibson, but I'm not even sure about that.

I actually find Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers pretty easy. If a guy's a good fielder or a good hitter and is recent enough, he's almost sure to have won at least one--unless he's stuck behind, say, an Ozzie Smith or Brooks Robinson in the field.

7/9, R316. I guess that all but eliminates me for the championship trophy.

Wait, today is the last day? I was eliminated anyway.

There are four of us left, so I say we do a 1-4, 2-3 playoff tomorrow, then a final on Tuesday.

I actually find Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers pretty easy. If a guy's a good fielder or a good hitter and is recent enough, he's almost sure to have won at least one--unless he's stuck behind, say, an Ozzie Smith or Brooks Robinson in the field.

― clemenza, Sunday, August 13, 2023 9:36 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i like remembering! don’t like guessing

9/9, 92 rarity score

https://i.postimg.cc/vZ01PgqN/F2-C07-C1-F-0-E14-4-C3-A-B664-2-F2503-A54-BE7.jpg

Congratulations, VC! Your cheque is in the mail.

Name                  Record                  GBL                  Rarity
voodoo chili           61-2                    --                    866
clemenza               56-7                   5.0                   1243
notime                 54-9                   7.0                   1759
gyac                   52-11                  9.0                   1801

i like remembering! don’t like guessing--bat flip.

We can call it there, but if everyone posts tomorrow, I'll count that as the LCS--voodoo vs. gyac, notime vs. me--and the World Series will go forward on Tuesday.

I did alright today!
https://imgur.com/a/rIe5VoP
115 rarity

9/9
101 rarity
detroit/kc was hard - could barely remember any of the royals from the 2014-15 WS teams never mind any of the terrible teams before and after, and the 70s and 80s teams i do sort of remember were no help. then i recalled an obvious center square answer could help me out

I'm the Clayton Kershaw of Immaculate Grid: 6/9, 403, a truly spectacular post-season meltdown.

Two wrong guesses on the Rays' 30-SB guy: Kevin Kiermaier and Ben Zobrist, both 15-20 regulars. I also thought of Carl Crawford, balked, then absent-mindedly looked him up mid-grid, forgetting I can try the same box again--yes, a few times, but now I can't use him because I checked. Absent-mindedly glanced at a headline about Wander Franco that included his yearly stats--exactly 30 SB--so now I can't use him either. Then I just made a wild stab at Jose Mesa for Rays/Guardians.

I knew I would ultimately be done in by one of the Final Four. It's all yours, notime.

https://i.postimg.cc/c1tZvHgL/grid.jpg

i dont play regularly but got a 7/9 316 today

7/9, 418R. For the record, I didn't check this thread before playing, so I didn't know what I needed to win.

Figured the TB squares would do me in, and they nearly did.

Almost went for Rusty Staub for the Nats/Expos 200 hits guy, but in the end decided to go with the safe choice (Vlad). The Cleveland/200 hits was deceptively hard too. I really need to memorize all of the teams of Fernando Rodney, Edwin Jackson, and a few other well traveled relievers, it would have helped today

Edwin Encarnacion, Tim Raines, RICKEY

X, X, Carl Crawford

Kenny Lofton, Vladimir Guerrero, Juan Pierre

Messed up the hidden text again! I am useless at html and image posting.

Good job. That crossed my mind, about not posting too early and making it clear that you wouldn't have to risk anything for the sake of rarity. I did so poorly, I figured it didn't matter--you'd get seven for sure in any event.

You may be playing tomorrow, or may be declared the winner today, pending vc and gyac.

9/9, rarity 202.

https://i.postimg.cc/pTYX7YRF/immaculate-grid-8-14-23.jpg

no respect for the rays as a division rival, clemenza? surely you've watched every iteration of the tampa bay team for at least a few games per season

Believe me, I have more than respect for them--as I've posted before, it's more like superstitious awe. They've killed the Jays since their turnaround in 2008, especially in Tampa. But--and this is a big part of their genius--they've never been a team of stars, and as I get older (except for maybe the '70s), stars are all I remember.

Spooky that Wander Franco is one of only eight correct answers today for their 30-SB guy, and that he has exactly 30. Of the hundreds of thousands of people who play this game each day, I wonder if more than three will come up with Jason Tyner, the first Ray to do it. Eight seasons, four teams, 1500 PA, 31 SB in 2001, 1 career HR.

You're not out of this, gyac. If you can pull out a 9, 202 is beatable on rarity.

Looking at vc's answers, I was planning to use Cliff Floyd at some point for the Expos/Marlins, but I didn't realize he spent a season in Tampa.

i remember a lot of randoms from that 2008 rays season, because it was the first successful one in their franchise history and the first time the yankees missed the playoffs in my waking memory

8/9

https://i.postimg.cc/k5XTqMcm/IMG-7575.jpg

Yu Chang my sweet glove-first prince! Read about Al Rosen a lot, I wasn’t sure but I literally had no other choices.

https://i.postimg.cc/TP7Cw87W/IMG-7576.jpg

Whoah--man that was close (you surely would have won rarity with a correct 9th answer). Nice job on Aaron, not exactly the first guy you think of for 30 SB.

Okay: voodoo chile and notime tomorrow. No DH, and omar little will be flying in to throw out the first pitch.

Al Rosen, too, one of the most overlooked great seasons ever.

I knew Rosen could hit but honestly, only Cleveland hitter I could name that might have been near 200, pure luck. I knew Aaron had a 30-30 season, that was it.

I was surprised to find Lofton on the list of 200-hit guys for Cleveland; assumed he walked enough that he never would have got there. But it was 1996, one of those Cleveland teams that fell just short of 1,000 runs, so he got to the plate 736 times in 154 games.

those late 90s cleveland teams scored like crazy, and kenny hit over .300 and hit leadoff. just a matter of math

'96 was one of only two times Lofton played 150+ games, though (the only quibble I have about his HOF candidacy--I hope he goes in anyway). 1999, when Cleveland actually did score over 1,000 runs, was more typical of his career: .301, 79 walks, 120 games, 140 hits (and 110 runs).

Sorry--for anyone who hasn't played today, I should have hidden that.

only gotta do it once

I didn’t share my grid, but for Cle 200 hits I went with Nap Lajoie. Thought he was the surest bet (him or Tris Speaker)

I liked that one too. I almost went with Speaker, and then, as I sometimes do, started second-guessing myself that his Cleveland wasn't the same Cleveland as today's Cleveland. Which was silly.

I'm the one left standing to get crushed by voodoo chili?

Just remember: you have to take it one game at a time.

voodoo vs. gyac

Just looked at today's--of course it looks like a gimme, one day too late for me. (I like notime's chances for an upset, though; Jays are on there, and vc says he's weak on Silver Sluggers.)

Omg gyac

Easy. Went with five moderately obvious answers; Eddie Collins was the only one I wasn't 100% sure on, and Billy Koch was my Moneyball gift.

Pretty sure today's winner will be decided on rarity.

https://i.postimg.cc/SsDFd2zz/grid.jpg

9/9
https://i.postimg.cc/3xz6wVnN/IMG-7632.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/3xz6wVnN/IMG-7632.jpg

Oh genius

https://i.postimg.cc/bvb5SgBT/IMG-7631.jpg

New ruling handed down from the Commissioner's Office: if neither of these guys gets 9/9, you and I are co-winners.

lol, I am not holding my breath on the others striking out but thank you

well those who have been prayin' and prayin' on my downfall have had theirs answered.

8/9, 193 rarity (lower than yesterday when i got all 9!)

https://i.postimg.cc/x8Bbq2k5/immaculate-grid-8-15-23.jpg

what tripped me up? you guessed it, silver sluggers. you mean to tell me that the decades-long home run king, the man they called hammerin' hank, henry aaron, never once won a silver slugger award? why even have a damn silver slugger award if hank mf'n aaron doesn't have as many as bret boone??

cos he retired several years before the award was created right?

Yeah, as I mentioned in an earlier post, they were launched in 1980.

"i like remembering! don’t like guessing"--pride goeth before the fall. (Kidding around, and you haven't lost yet. NoTime, the whole world is watching.)

it should never have been established at all, dumb award

Did I mention I think the Diamondbacks and Marlins are stupid?
― clemenza, Friday, August 11, 2023

it should never have been established at all, dumb award
― ludicrously capacious bag (voodoo chili), Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Now you're getting into the spirit of things.

I’m going to give out my own entirely made-up thread awards once NoTime posts his grid. Have enjoyed this very much, thanks clemenza

Thanks, it was a lot of fun. I'm competitive by nature, so love stuff like this.

Posting my awards behind the cut cos they’re not dependent on NTBT posting. For those who can’t read my writing, the awards will be covered in full on my Fangraphs podcast.


https://i.postimg.cc/G2c1VTfP/IMG-7634.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/MTd8SKkC/IMG-7635.jpg

FUCK!

the blank award at the very top should be joint Pepitone/Pattin

lovely handwriting, gyac!

Literally nobody has ever complimented my handwriting since school, when it was considered actively detrimental, feeling like this rn
https://i.postimg.cc/0yfP9fqM/IMG-7043.jpg

Wrong lowrie

I don’t know if this is a reference to something I missed out or not 🫥

Sorry to keep you all in suspense. The results are in. Let's see if this works:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/e6y5snuWrikF3aqf6

Of course not! I am working hard to earn gyac's award:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NwVFJuUwbvqUkJ9A9

Since I am still useless at this, that's 8/9, 258 rarity.

My wrong answer (on my fourth guess I think) was George Sisler for the O's 3K hits. I didn't know vc's score, but I knew I had to sweep the board from that point on and take a few chances.

i haven't kept up, very busy, stressful, moderately awful week

9/9 rarity score of 133. the lower left dude really wrecked it for me.

https://i.imgur.com/PJ2T2kD.png

i always love an excuse to use tettleton

Even with the botched answer I still managed a rarity score if 192.

tried to get cute and think of someone who wasn’t Rickey for 3,000 hits and I failed!

https://imgur.com/a/WP9yDWL

i tried to think of someone who was not Rickey but failed, i imagine some old timer would work but i couldn't be sure of any other answer.

Close! Our inaugural winner is voodoo chili, who beats NoTime on rarity, 193-258. Please note that both playoff losers from yesterday beat today's finalists! (And that omar checked in to remind everyone how formidable he was.)

Good stuff, gyac--I will treasure the cloud bubble around my name for days and months to come.

We should do this again around World Series time, if everyone isn't thoroughly sick of the game by then. Meantime, I plan to spend a few weeks each in Phoenix, Miami, Tampa Bay, and Denver to familiarize myself with the customs, people, and history of those fine, fine baseball cities.

Except for Rickey, it's just a Who's Who of ancient guys for the A's and 3,000 hits: Cobb, Speaker, Lajoie, and Collins.

You rolled the dice a bit with Barfield, Thermo, and it worked--so much competition in '86, and the Jays still relatively under-publicized, I'm surprised he won one.

back then that kind of home run total was rare. figured it was a safe bet!

A couple of you indicated that you regretted picking certain players. That is definitely not me. Although my preference was always to be naming favourite Jays, or ex-Pilots, or Mickey Rivers, if it meant the difference between a right answer and no answer, I'd type in Charles Manson without blinking. I'm like Elliott Gould's line about the poker-playing doctor in California Split: "He'd rather lose a patient than a hand."

can anyone guess which team i'm a fan of

https://i.postimg.cc/NM183x16/image.png

whoops i hope this'll work

https://i.postimg.cc/NM183x16/image.png

Saw a great game--fast-moving pitchers duel, Jays came from behind to win 2-1. Most important of all, our foursome--me, a friend, and his two grade-school boys--consumed 16 hot dogs between us, contributing to the 69,000 eaten tonight. Which was a couple of thousand shy of the record.

Oops--wrong thread.

Sent them three suggestions for benchmarks/awards--they're recycling the same dozen over and over.

1) World Series MVP -- I think that's something that most fans take notice of. I can name a bunch of them...I'm guessing I could name, I don't know, a third of them since 1970 from memory and/or logic.

2) Triple Crown winners (hitters) -- not a lot of them, but memorable.

3) Triple Crown winners (pitchers) -- more pitchers than hitters, I think, but not as celebrated.

i like the triple crown idea. i can name exactly two WS MVPs. thought they could also maybe do nation of origin - like Cuba, Japan, Canada, Mexico etc (US and Dominican being way too easy obvs)

https://i.postimg.cc/C5cGLJYH/grid.jpg

7/9, 335. Padres are another blind spot for me. I wish I'd saved Gossage for the top left, and I wish I'd used Wilbur Wood for the top right instead of Hoyt--not sure if his rarity score would have better, but I just love the thought of Wilbur Wood, a 90-year-old knuckleballer with glasses who twice was on pace to win 30 in the early '70s.

(xpost) I bet you know a lot more WS MVPs than you think. You know the two Jays' winners; you know that Ortiz and Rivera must have won at least one each. That's four. Throw in a few obvious winners, like Brooks Robinson in 1970, throw in Koufax and Gibson and Mickey Lolich, add Madison Bumgarner, and you're past 10 already.

6/9 R435

https://i.imgur.com/yzjG75Z.png

2 close misses for me: #1 is Mark Buerhle only won 19 games for CWS, which was the same for #2 Dock Ellis for the Pirates

https://i.imgur.com/hm4FAsO.png

rarity score of 85

i was surprised Kile and Hampton weren't apparently as well-remembered for those spots. also apparently James Shields has returned to play MLB as one "Joe Musgrove".

(xpost) I knew J.R. Richard had struck out 300 (twice), but I didn't realize he'd won 20.

9/9
144 rarity
Had surprising trouble with the Cards but eventually recalling the 80s era when they were division rivals of the Mets resurfaced some names.

8/9, 184. I lost a good rarity score with my eighth answer, Nelson Cruz, but I did keep popping back periodically, hoping I'd come up with something for Seattle/Atlanta. Tried Julio Franco, no. When did Robinson Cano play for the Braves? Must have missed that.

https://i.postimg.cc/dtD1rQn4/grid.jpg

Best answer today? I thought about trying either Alvin Davis or Phil Bradley for the M's All-Star, but my baseball people loved Ken Phelps' bat. They kept saying "Ken Phelps, Ken Phelps." So I went with that.

I fluffed up my joke with the wrong end of that transaction.

8/9

https://i.postimg.cc/HWcv2hyZ/IMG-7772.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/2jscX7dz/IMG-7771.jpg

Clemenza have you ever seen the comic Dale Murphy’s son drew about him? Genuinely heartwarming.

No, I'll look around for that. He's been a big HOF cause of Posnanski's in recent years. (Hope that doesn't need to be hidden.)

No problem, it’s here https://eu.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2012/12/18/dale-murphy-cartoon-son/1777541
the accompanying commentary is lovely!

I have the keep the 37 minutes Sergio Romo spent with the Jays filed away for future use.

53 rarity score today, best i ever had, i think. my selection of sergio romo is a tribute to gyac.

https://i.postimg.cc/Twc326x0/immaculate-grid-8-17-23.jpg

oh whoops forgot to embed the image. click if you dare!

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

For all the fans of this man, his video talking through striking out Miggy in the 2012 WS with a meatball is great. Just skip the first two minutes cos it’s ads.

7/9, 222. I had a great one going through my first five answers--under 16%--caught the rarity bug, so I tried Kevin McReynolds for the Mets' 100-RBI guy...99! So I went with the more obvious Gary Carter, who turned out to be only 3%; wasted guess. Got Dave Parker, one guess left, tried Tito Fuentes for Mets/Brewers. Nope. I don't think I would have got anyone for the Rockies/Brewers anyway. The Pilots were no help today.

I do like to detail my every thought with this game, don't I?

https://i.postimg.cc/gJMmQXdX/grid.jpg

Geez, Fuentes didn't play for either team. I think I'm mixing him up with Felix Millan. If you were around, that will make perfect sense to you--Similarity Score of 939.2, which is extremely high.

https://i.imgur.com/7Nvb69F.png

rarity score of 58!

was having real trouble with the middle column til i started thinking of Expos. I knew there were a lot of Rockies 100 RBI seasons, tried to think of the most unlikely one. I remembered HoJo because as a Cubs fan that guy was a scourge during his peak era.

Thought about answering him for the Mets - but didn’t want to chase rarity when there were a fair number of more obvious ones to go with.
And same for the Expos - always seem to do better when I think in terms of them and not the nationals.

9/9, rarity score of 91. thank wfan for my random met memories

jhoulys chacin (5%), larry walker(22%) , matt holiday (4%)
moustakas (19%), dunn (30%), george foster (6%)
mike cameron (2%), endy chavez (.7%), bernard gilkey (1%)

I wish I were better at remembering the Jeromy Burnitzes of the world. He was one of a group of rookies who were everywhere in the discounted Score cards I bought in '91 and '92. https://www.amazon.com/Score-Baseball-Rookie-Card-Burnitz/dp/B00IVVQDZQ

I will not discuss today's grid, other than to say I had my first 0.01% answer: Danny Cater, who hit .301 for the Yankees in 1970. Remembered that from my first Zander Hollander guide--that, and I think it was his entry that said he could calculate his batting average to four decimal places on his way to first base.

https://i.imgur.com/koqJYEe.png

9/9, 99 rarity

i do try to go for rarity if possible but a couple of these were vv tough for that. i went with Winfield there because I remembered his down to the wire chase for the batting title in 1984 vs his teammate Mattingly.

Wow, we got the exact same score!!! 9/9 and 99 rarity!
Amazingly, I did this right after waking up before coffee.
It did help that the gf and I had a convo about 30/30 guys a few days ago.

https://imgur.com/a/GXdbqyN

When I broke 50 on rarity a couple of weeks ago, I said I wouldn't pay any mind to that from now on. But that's still the fun of the game for me, and it leads to a predictable pattern: I'll be halfway through with a great rarity score, then I'll overreach, then I basically give up on the last two or three answers.

I wouldn't normally link to an Amazon sale like I did with that Jeromy Burnitz card yesterday--such links usually have a shelf life--but I'm confident that one's going to be on the block for a while. The card was went on sale March 8, 2014.

bottom left ruined my rarity but i genuinely couldn’t think of anyone else

Bottom left got me too, missed twice on Arizona, scored just 7/9. Was working on a good rarity score until that point.

What will the general attitude toward Immaculate Grid be in twenty or thirty years?

Wow, we got the exact same score!!! 9/9 and 99 rarity!

same bottom row! I knew Jeter won one of those but I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge it.

And not just any GG, but a special Pasta-Diving Gold Glove.

Easiest IG to date...? although I did paint myself into a corner by choosing Bonds for the upper right instead of middle right, thankfully Mookie qualified in his stead!

9/9, 136R which I think is pretty good for someone who knocks this game out in <2 mins.

https://i.imgur.com/ziB0p62.png

One of your answers surprises me: had no idea Roger Maris won a Gold Glove.

Fun fact from the back of his yoohoo card lol

I just have no interest in these when they're mostly stats categories

Wish they would at least branch out/steal some of the cool ideas from hoopgrids

8/9, 250--very easy one I messed up with Lou Brock for the Cubs' career .300 average--.293, not even close. I flinched on Hack Wilson, which was dumb; everyone had a .300 career average then. And I could have named Bill Madlock. I used four really obvious answers, but how does Steve Pearce have a rarity of 9% for the Jays/Red Sox? He should be down around 1%, even with the WS MVP.

https://i.postimg.cc/mkYRkWjf/grid.jpg

8/9

https://i.postimg.cc/4dyjqRrL/IMG-7958.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/x8bhjyjL/IMG-7957.jpg

Of the Marlins 22 career .300 hitters, I don't think I've even heard of 17 of them: Joel Adamson, Chad Bentz, Carter Capps, Dave Davidson, Joe Dunand, Xavier Edwards, Cody Ege, José García, Mark Hutton, Mike Jeffcoat, Dan Jennings, Mitch Lyden, Terry Mathews, Brian Navarreto, Will Ohman, Yefri Pérez, Tim Wood. I've checked a couple, and for their careers they combined for 3 hits in 5 AB.

...if it meant the difference between a right answer and no answer, I'd type in Charles Manson without blinking. I'm like Elliott Gould's line about the poker-playing doctor in California Split: "He'd rather lose a patient than a hand."
― clemenza, Tuesday, August 15, 2023 4:42 PM (five days ago)

You named Anthony Bass--welcome to the dark side.

I think I’ve used him before! Relievers I usually only know well for teams I follow closely but this guy is one of maybe two players my family could name. Jeff Frye I also heard of because of a social media meltdown.

If we name bad people, they don't get any royalties, so I think we're okay--we haven't made the world a worse place.

https://i.imgur.com/rliaFu0.png

9/9, 91

what comes in handy here is having a memory for guys who stopped in for a cup of coffee before moving on to other teams, or remembering those young fellas who were shipped off before they hit it big. As a Cubs fan I always remember Joe Carter, though in my mind he'll be permanently tied to Mel Hall (much to his regret I'm sure) since they were part of the package sent to Cleveland for Rick Sutcliffe in that fabled 1984 season.

Yeah, I should have thought of Carter immediately, instead of going for the obvious answer in Stroman. After I checked Jays/Cubs, I wish I'd named Dennis Lamp--11-0 when the Jays won their first divisional title!

91 is a very good rarity score for nine pretty famous players.

I knew Yan Gomes cos I watched the recent series and they kept mentioning it. Otherwise I’d have gone for the same choice as clemenza.

Would have been able to go 9/9 if I hadn’t confused Adrian Gonzalez’s fist name with Alex!

https://imgur.com/a/vzFJ9ii

9/9, 131 R. Could have and probably should have done better on the Jays-related rarity picks, counterintuitively I was afraid of blowing the perfect score on a Jays square so I went for a couple of safe picks.

Kevin Brown, Carlos Delgado, Ichiro // Jake Arrieta, Marcus Stroman, Hack Wilson // Craig Kimbrel, Roger Clemens, Tris Speaker

In Stratford this afternoon and ran into Scott, who runs the Canadian HOF in St. Marys. I asked him if he'd tried Immaculate Grid; yes, a couple of times, but he didn't do well. So we can all take heart.

9/9
143 rarity which I'll take in any grid involving the Marlins
real land of contrasts in my picks which is par for the course
https://imgur.com/a/t4q2l1I

8/9 for me today

could've sworn mark prior pitched a few games for the padres, but no: he signed with them, and attempted to rehab his various ailments, but he never returned to the majors after leaving the cubs :/

Fred Lynn, Dave Kingman, Greg Maddux--no recollection of any of them playing for the Padres.

i don't know why i always remember Lynn played for the Padres. Must have had a baseball card or something. what a weird career he had though, two of the great single seasons of the '70s and then a merely good career the rest of the time.

didn't remember Kingman had played for the Padres either but that was from the season where he was traded like a hot potato.

I think my brain might have a built-in ceiling of three teams per player. Lynn = Boston, Angels, Orioles; Kingman = Cubs, Mets, A's; Maddux = Braves, Cubs, Dodgers...well, actually I think Kingman started with the Giants.

8/9, 145. Good start, as per usual: remembered that San Francisco felt betrayed when Marichal went to the Dodgers, remembered that Dick Allen played for the Cards (the Curt Flood trade) and Dodgers between his more famous tenures with the Phillies and White Sox, and was sitting at 4.6% rarity through four guesses. Lost that with my next three--Lee, Evans, and Clark, all of whom were less rare than I thought they'd be--remembered the Harvey Kuenn for Rocky Colavito trade and rebounded. 8/8, still a decent chance to break 50. But Cards/Tigers was harder than I expected. Scanning the list, I don't think I missed anyone super-obvious. I guessed Juan Beniquez, who didn't play for either; I may have been confusing him with Juan Encarnacion, I don't know.

https://i.postimg.cc/qMp0ZMN7/grid.jpg

7/9, Charles Manson rule very much invoked
https://i.postimg.cc/4xJ63gdQ/IMG-8043.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/W4z0Mw0D/IMG-8042.jpg

As the inventor of the John Waite Rule, the Breaking the Waves Rule, the "Time After Time" Rule, and the Rob Sheffield Rule, among others, I love the sound of the Charles Manson Rule.

9/9 - 66 rarity
god bless the 70s is all i can say
https://imgur.com/a/8dUkrEO

9/9, 97--first 9 in at least a week. Admittedly, easy benchmarks, no new teams. I'm golfing today, needed to get moving (and didn't want to be out there thinking about this), so I gave in on rarity with my eighth answer, Jose Abreu. I'd already had a 20%+ with Palmeiro anyway. I was thinking a good rarity pick for the Orioles and 500 HR is impossible--there's Palmeiro, Murray, and Frank Robinson--but I forgot Reggie was there for a season between the A's and Yankees; I bet he's low. I was sure Richard Hidalgo would be under 1%--and Bagwell up near 100--but somehow he's at 5. What else (every grid is a novel)...I have a game-used bat from Lee May, spring training 1972. And a whole story to go with it. But I guess that's enough.

https://i.postimg.cc/MGV31TRT/grid.jpg

Two great answers I could have used instead for Astros/White Sox: Don Larsen (seriously?), or Lee Maye--I could have had Lee Maye and Lee May side-by-side.

ok, so what is the Charles Manson rule?!

Using the worst person you can think of to fill a square

https://i.imgur.com/Z0p1wkz.png

9/9, rarity 171

i was a little surprised Sosa received 8% of the Baltimore vote, and Carlos Lee only received 7% of the Houston/ChiSox one.

Junior played with the White Sox?! I must have been out of that weekend.

he had a quick layover on the way back to Seattle from Cincy!

Will be starting a poll shortly on Clemenza's 50 Favorite Immaculate Grids.

https://i.postimg.cc/gjMf8gpt/image.png

playing around in incognito, i think the most forgotten 500 HR hitter may be willie mccovey at 0.7%. that tracks for me, i remember he exists (i remember everyone who has coves named after them) but i never think of him as a 500 HR guy. he and ernie banks are two where i always have to think did they get to 500 or top out at 475? and i guess mccovey's generally overshadowed by mays and bonds in SF. now frank robinson does have 0.6%, but i imagine that would be a couple ticks higher if people didn't use him already for the Orioles square. surprised to find eddie mathews all the way up at 0.9%