a.k.a. V.J.

I’m not much of a video/computer/mobile gamer. Hand-eye coordination was never my strong suit, which put a hard ceiling on how good I could ever get at a lot of arcade and console games. When I was younger, I enjoyed PC-based strategy/worldbuilding games like the Civilization series, but those games are major time-sucks. I simply don’t have the hours to devote to them at this stage in my life. Then there are the big mobile games that usually involve playing against other people and/or paying money to advance quicker, neither of which I’m inclined to do.

I have, however, recently discovered an online game that is right up my alley. The game is called Immaculate Grid. It’s simple, low key, solitary, and rewards remembering decades worth of useless information. In other words, it has my name written all over it.

Immaculate Grid presents the player with a 3 by 3 grid and challenges them to name athletes in a given sport who exist at the intersection of two variables on that grid. For example, name a baseball player who played for both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies; or name someone who played second base and also had 2,000+ career hits. You can only use a single player once, even if that player would qualify at multiple spots on the same grid. You only get 9 guesses in the game, so you have to be perfect (or immaculate) to win.

Grids are available in baseball, football, hockey, and basketball. I mostly stick to baseball, but will occasionally dabble in football. (The latter is more challenging since NFL players at many positions, like linemen, safeties, special teamers, etc. tend to be more anonymous and not on my radar.)

Not surprisingly, the players I retrieve from my memory bank tend to be from the 1970s through the 1990s — my childhood to early adult years, when I was doing things like collecting baseball cards and competing in fantasy leagues. My grids usually look like they were taken from a 1986 newspaper box score.

The rest of the world can have their Fortnite, their Assassin’s Creed, and their Pokemon GO. I’ll just be over here quietly wracking my brain, trying to remember if Rusty Staub ever played for the Texas Rangers.