Immaculate Grid May Force Me to Start Paying Attention to Baseball Again

Anybody who considers themselves a loyal DOL reader knows that the Mookie Betts trade not only ended my Red Sox fandom but pretty much ruined the entire sport for me. That horrendous transaction based solely on money put my baseball-loving heart in a blender and watched it spin around into a depressed-ass oblivion. Rendezvous, John Henry, FUCK YOU!

From 2003-2019, the Boston Red Sox were, on average likeee the 2.8th most important thing to me about being alive. It's crazy to think about now, but the Red Sox were a massive part of my life and who I was (or thought I was). If you asked me to describe myself, idk how many things I'd say before "Red Sox fan." I kinda replaced that part of me with being "woke," aka giving a fuck about humanity, but I do miss the rituals of being a baseball fan. I loved going to games with people and talking ball. I can't remember crucial details of conversations, but I can hold on to some random ass stats. I still have a lot of that rando knowledge, but my brain's been leaking baseball data since 2020. I used to be able to say any World Series matchup, result and MVP from 1960-now if you gave me a year. That fastball ain't where it used to be.

1974? Well, that was A's over Dodgers in 6, of course. (I didn't look that up until now, and it was in 5...fuck I'm slippin!!!). I must make up for that...1987? That's easy; Twins over Cardinals in 7. MVP: Frank Viola. The home team won every game. The Twins went 8-0 at home and 0-6 on the road in their two World Series wins. In '91, they beat the Braves. I still got it. Yes, I'm writing this blog high at 2:25. #DozoSThompson. Oh and '91 WS MVP: Jack Morris.

#DozVsTheDozen is on a hiatus until I get a new phone, but I'd routinely flex my MLB knowledge like 1998 Mark McGwire (except I'm all natural, baby) there as well. I'm such a fucking history guy. I really live in the past. All my baseball knowledge is before Covid. I mean, I know who won and lost the World Series, but awards, stats...no clue. That blind spot in my baseball knowledge makes one of my new favorite games much more challenging than needed! Between wanting to share my perfect 9/9 score on the internet and having a free MLB.tv sub, thanks to T-Mobile, I might have to try to pay attention to baseball again.

It's just so hard because baseball is the most regionalized pro sport, IMO. With the volume of games, it's tough to keep up with much outside of your team (although I did for years), and I can't watch the Red Sox on MLB.tv (which is idiotic). I'm not even sure I'd want to if I could; I'm still so fucking angry with ownership and how they destroyed a team that won 108 games so quickly, but I'm getting off track and want this to stay a happy high.

You're probably wondering what the fuck I'm talking about at this point since I haven't mentioned this game yet (outside of the blog title). I'm gonna run this blog through Grammarly like I do with everything I write, but I'm gonna keep this roundabout, fucked up order to both symbolize how I wrote this blog and to stay true to my Dozie roots.

Immaculate Grid is a game designed for baseball nerds. I saw examples on Twitter, but didn't really get it until last week when my buddy asked me if I've heard of them and explained. Now they're one of my favorite parts of the day. I just wish there was more than one per day (and that there were versions for other sports...tbh, there could be...I haven't even looked yet, but I have brought hoping there's an NFL one to at least 3 people I talked to about this new superior IG).

The Immaculate Grid is a 3x3 grid where the X and Y axes are labeled with a combo of MLB team logos, awards, and statistical achievements. You have to name a player that hits all criteria for each spot in the grid and can only use a player once per daily grid. With only nine guesses, you must be perfect to get an immaculate grid. As a hashtag good guy, when I tweet out my grid results, I put up a content warning to not spoil the grid or help someone cheat. That's why this tweet is a screenshot instead of embedded since you can't embed those.

These are the official rules with a sneak peak of one side of today's grid. The rules pop up automatically, so I haven't seen the full top row yet. I still haven't started because I normally do them on my phone and my brain isn't a full capability rn since it's 3:37 am  (even tho I'm blogging like a beast).

​Bonus points for anybody who can identify all my bookmarked websites!

So far, I've only fucked up once. I LOVE how there's data that shows how commonly your answer was selected. Obvi, the lower, the better. Even though they're not scored that way, it makes you feel better if you get off on being a niche fuck like I do. I dropped a "Rudy Seanez" on my first grid and legit might've been the only person who used him. 

There's a more egregious omission later, but having no pic for Youk is disrespectful AF. That man once held the AL-record for most putouts with an error at 1B!

In grid spots like the 40+ HR season and World Series champ, the player had to hit 40+ the season he won the World Series. If you only hit 40 HR seasons in non-WS champ seasons, it wouldn't count. I'll never forget that Luis Gonzalez had 57 HR in 2001 and hit a walk-off infield fly to beat the Yankees in Game 7!!!!

Previous DOL Immaculate Grids (and one 8/9):

Legend has it Don Drysdale kept a tape of the speech RFK gave right before his death where he shouted out his shoutout streak with him for the rest of his life. The new RFK fucking sucks and so do you if you fw him.

I knew Shelby Miller fit the empty space, but I got the Rockies 30/30 one wrong with Tulo and tried again.

It's so fucking gross that Youk fits there,

It's INSANE there's no pic for the Say Hey KiD!!!!!

My tweet that I couldn't embed says it all. This game is PERFECT for someone like me who doesn't watch much baseball anymore but still has an encyclopedic knowledge of random baseball stuff. Also, my lack of nouveau ball is fucking me. Example: I mean, I still got it right with John Kruk, but for the Padres x Phillies spot, Craig Krimbel was the most common answer...oh yeah..that's another stat they show. You can also see what percentage of people responded correctly for each spot.

If this game seems like something you'd enjoy, check it out at immaculategrid.com. I'm not getting paid to write this blog, but I gladly will if anybody's offering!!

P.S.

I am sooo down to talk grids and responses with anybody that's into that.