Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: The story is, it all just came together so quickly. So if you're familiar with baseball reference on the homepage, there's like a trending players section.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Hey, Stuart here. I recently spoke to Adam Dorowski, head of product at Sportsreference, about how they acquired the game.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Immaculate grid and a few things happened. I forget which exactly was first, but like we were finding some interesting players in the trending players like Karl Crawford randomly trending in the summer of 2023. And we have this page that has been on the site for like 20 years that shows you pick two teams and it shows you everybody that played for those teams that went from a few hundred hits per day to thousands, eventually many thousands. So we're seeing that happen on the back end as well in our analytics.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Next is my conversation with Adam, but before we get to that, I wanted to share some info about the new series I'm working on. I've mentioned before that I'm making an audio documentary called our beloved medium, which will be a six part series where every episode tells a story about significant events that played out over the radio. Airwaves were still in the early stages of production, but I've got a little preview for you here if you like obscure ball. Hopefully you'll enjoy this as well.
Below is a link where you can monetarily support our efforts if you'd like to.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: This was a really tense moment. We're obviously days away from the war actually breaking out. But what was leading up to this moment was really years of a drumbeat of actual conquest that was taking place by Germany, by hitlers regime. At the time, he had annexed Austria famously without firing a shot, but it was done through a lot of what was effectively a coup over the phone, some folks that he embedded into the regime and took over. There's a whole episode on that that I cover.
Then he went for Czechoslovakia and in particular the sudeten region, which is the most fortified, the most valuable section of Czechoslovakia that prior to the end of World War one was part of Germany and he sort of demanded that back to Germany and that was done and solidified through the Munich agreement. It's basically blessed by the great democracies of Europe at the time, France, Britain, moderated by Italy, even though he was secretly partnering with Hitler on the side, Italy and Mussolini specifically.
And once that full conquest of Czechoslovakia was completed again, both without engaging in a full scale war, the next target was Poland.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: But why a radio station? If you're going to stage an attack, why not set the Reichstag on fire again or maybe assassinate some lower level officers or politicians that you don't really care about and then just say that Poland did it.
Let's back up a few years and try to understand how the radio medium had changed, how people communicated.
Thats next.
Okay, back to my conversation with Adam.
When I caught up with Adam, he was telling me how sportsreference was able to buy immaculate grid, which some people call the wordle of baseball. Initially it was designed by a developer named Brian Minter.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: And then of course, like, we had people on the team who were seeing immaculate grid on social media and were playing it and sharing it in our games channel and slack and all of these things kind of came together like, oh, wow, this is wild. How not only is this game super fun, but it's also impacting our traffic in a very positive way. And it feels like there's an opportunity to lean into that.
We didn't want to change it because it was obviously already doing exactly what we wanted. So we figured there were just ways to streamline that rather than us actually approaching the developer, the developer actually approached us about collaborating on a partnership and what turned into an eventual sale. And the thing that was intriguing to him was the fact that we have multiple sports and this would obviously work across all of the major american sports and even soccer. So that's kind of the story of how it came to be early on and it all kind of came together quickly. We, I guess the timeline is that we met with the developer for the first time on June 20 of 2023, and by the 29th, we had acquired it and launched a small team and relaunched right after the Sabre convention last summer on July 11.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: And if you've never played before, Immaculate.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Grid is a sports trivia game that we have across all of the sports that we cover. It is a very simple game board. It's a three by three grid. There are three topics or teams across the top and three across the side. And for each of the nine cells, you have to come up with a player who matches those two categories. So it could be like someone who hit 30 home runs for the Braves, or someone who played for the Braves and the Mariners, or someone who played for the Braves and was born outside the USA. And you get nine guesses. That's why it's immaculate grid, that to get nine out of nine, you can't get a single one wrong. And the other aspect of the game that Brian added pretty, pretty shortly before we acquired is the rarity score. And people have really grabbed onto that where not only do you want to pick a player that fits? And some people do that, and they want to get nine out of nine, and that's fine. But some people try to get the nine out of nine while going as rare as possible as well. And rarity is, like, the fewest number of players who used of grid players who used that player. So if you chose, you know, an obscured, like, late 1970s backup catcher who played for the Reds and the Angels, you might get a 0.4% or something like that and be very proud of how rare your score was.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: As someone who plays almost every day. I tried to play first ink each morning, but for whatever reason, on the day I talked with Adam, I hadn't played yet. So I figured, let's record my attempt for that day.
[00:07:09] Speaker D: All right, I'm gonna. We're gonna do this in real time. I'm gonna try to play some magical grid. I haven't really played it yet today. Oh, all right. So, Boston, ten win pitching season. I remember Daisuke Matusaka.
Felt like he led the majors and wins one year. I don't remember which one, but I got that one right.
₩10 pitching season.
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with Joe Nathan for the, for the Twins.
Nope, didn't work out. Man. You'd think, I know he's a closer, but. All right. That didn't work out for me. So usually my process is once I start missing them, then I start caring less about the rarity and more about getting them. Right. So I'm gonna go with Garrett Cole for ten win pitching season for the Pirates, 30%. So not great on the rarity there.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah, down that ten win column for the Red Sox, I had Bill Monbequette.
For the Pirates, I had babe Adams. So I'm pretty old on that one. And I mentioned earlier for the Twins, I had Connie Marrero as the pitcher there for the senators.
[00:08:19] Speaker D: In the interest of. So in the interest of being ethical, I can't. I'm not going to use the one you just gave me because I want to think of it myself.
Let's see here.
Cespedis played for both the Pirates. I mean, sorry, the Red Sox and the Tigers, 4%. I thought it'd be a little bit higher.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: That's a good one. I had Johnny pesky there.
[00:08:45] Speaker D: All right, six plus war season. There's a lot of really obvious choices for Boston on that one.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Yeah, this was the last one I filled in because, you know, I'm in New England, so I felt like I had to go rare here. So I'll see who you come up with first.
[00:09:09] Speaker D: I mean, I could cop out and say Ted Williams or Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Now, I'm curious to confirm if Ortiz actually did reach six. He did. In one season. Okay.
[00:09:21] Speaker D: Oh, no, I missed it.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Uh oh. Who'd we go with?
[00:09:25] Speaker D: Well, I decided to go with Buckner.
Thought maybe. Thought maybe he despite.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Oh, no. That he wasn't going to get close there. I wonder, Smokey Joe Wood, who had a 30 win season long ago.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: I'm going to.
[00:09:39] Speaker D: I'm going to have to cop out here and go with.
I'm just going to cop out and go with Manny.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: See, what's interesting is my own personal rule is if I do miss a spot, I can't add a player to that one again. I have to leave that one alone.
[00:09:55] Speaker D: Oh, okay.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: But that's just a personal rule.
[00:09:58] Speaker D: Yeah, no, that's. That's fair, man. This one's. This one's tough. Today, I can't think of, outside of Roberto Clemente, I can't think of too many pirates that would have a war above six.
Have you thought of that in any other advanced metrics beyond war? I mean, it's become the one I think that's most, like, accepted and understood over, say, like, the last ten years.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: We're trying to keep it less focused on, like, the advanced metrics. Cause there's a lot of players who already don't care for the war category. So we feel like using six war, it's essentially like saying, all right, who had a monster season for this team, essentially. And even the 40 war career. It's like, well, who had a solid, decently length career and played for this team? That type of thing. So I don't think you'll see players who had a plus 20 r field or 140 or better ops or anything like that.
[00:11:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
Even though those are important statistics. Yeah, but you're. But you're right. I mean, I think, like.
Cause I hate, I hate reading, like, baseball blogs that just, like, get so granular with some of the advanced metrics. It's like, give me the storylines, give me the slash lines.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's all about, like, things that people remember, like Gold Glove awards, you know, for better or worse. You know, that's actually one of the categories people do struggle with the most is the Gold Glove awards because, you know, it's not always the best fielder who got them. You know, Mike Trout got a platinum glove, but he never got a Gold glove. And that's something that's, that's burned me playing the grid, to be honest.
[00:11:47] Speaker D: Well, it seems like just about any outfielder who played between, I don't know, like 1995 and 2010, you know, a lot of them, if you weren't Andrew Jones or Jim Edmonds, you know, you're not, it's not anything beyond. That's not really a guarantee. Maybe KinG Griffey Junior, but yeah, there weren't, there weren't a lot of guys getting them in the National League, aside from, aside from those two.
Let's see, man.
So I'm feeling the pressure here. Not really.
Ooh. I know. How many use for the twins and the, and the Tigers.
Jack Morris?
[00:12:37] Speaker A: I was going to say that was.
[00:12:39] Speaker D: The, fairly, a fairly obvious. 121 percent of people agree with me on that one.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: So my challenge became finding someone who wasn't Jack Morris. And it wasn't easy. I ended up going with Bobo Newsom because I was pretty sure that he had played for, I knew he had played for the senators, and I was pretty sure he had Tiger seasons, too. And it does turn out those were the two teams that he did have the most wins for. He had a lot of.
[00:13:07] Speaker D: Jackson's always. I don't know if he works for that one, but Edwin Jackson's always kind of my default if I'm not quite sure, pick Edwin Jackson.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: I know. I think I've only used him like two or three times because to me, that's like the Hail Mary pass. Is using Edwin Jackson.
[00:13:22] Speaker D: No, he's bailed me. He's bailed me out a number of times.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: He actually doesn't work there. Interesting, huh?
[00:13:29] Speaker D: Yeah, I guess. I know. He definitely played for Detroit. I feel like, or am I wrong?
You play for Detroit, right?
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Uh, see, he doesn't work in any of those cells today.
I thought he played for Detroit, too. Like, for the most part. I only remember him with the, uh, with the Rays, to be honest. But Dodgers, too. Yeah. Is the other one.
He did play for Detroit, but none of the three teams that matched. So he didn't play for Boston, Pittsburgh or Minnesota.
Just about everybody else, though.
[00:14:15] Speaker D: Oh, you know who I could have? I could have used Edgar renteria for the Tigers and Red Sox.
All right, I've got one guess left and three categories I'm going to completely.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: My other Tigers, Red Sox that I was thinking about using was Rob Deer.
[00:14:41] Speaker D: Rob Deer. When did he play? I don't know him.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: He was the eighties and nineties.
He was one of the first big strikeout guys.
[00:14:52] Speaker D: So not my best effort. Seven out of nine and a rarity score of 321. So.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Okay, not my best effort. In any event, I'd highly recommend immaculate grid. And in general, I'm a big fan of everything going on at sports reference. As someone who works in sports, it's really, really handy. And even if covering sports isn't your.
[00:15:17] Speaker D: Job and you just like doing it.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: For a hobby, sports reference is the place to go. Anyway, that's it for this short episode. Remember, you can stay tuned to this feed because I do occasionally have new episodes. And please check out the link below to see how you can support our beloved medium.
