July 16, 2023
THE NATIONAL PASTIME:
A New Game Called Immaculate Grid Makes Stars Out of Baseball's Has-Beens: 'My day has arrived.' Journeyman players of yesteryear are enjoying a moment of stardom thanks to new trivia craze. (Jared Diamond and Joseph De Avila, July 16, 2023. WSJ)
LaTroy Hawkins is the definition of a Major League Baseball journeyman. He never made an All-Star team or won a World Series. For 21 seasons from 1995 through 2015, Hawkins crisscrossed the country while pitching for 11 different teams.That résumé won't send Hawkins to Cooperstown, but it makes him a Hall-of-Famer in the Immaculate Grid--a new Wordle-like daily quiz game that tests players' knowledge of MLB minutiae.Immaculate Grid has sparked a surge of appreciation for players just like Hawkins: the nomads who build their careers in relative anonymity, whose contributions to baseball might otherwise have been forgotten."The game is not made up of superstars, I can tell you that much," Hawkins said, referring to baseball, not Immaculate Grid. "The game is made up of guys like me." [...]The real fun for many is finding a player that nobody else would ever think about.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 16, 2023 5:26 PM