It is not important and furthermore not anyone's business how many times per day I fill out one of the little three-by-three squares at Immaculate Grid, or how many times I have done it since the site went online in 2023. I'm simply not going to be addressing that issue at this time, and feel it would be irresponsible for others to speculate on the matter. I can't stress this enough.
But I will say this: It's a lot. The Grid, which challenges users to Remember A Guy that fits into various different categories every day, delivered an efficient if sometimes maddening way to scratch a mental itch that has been with me for more or less my whole life. At the very least, I'll generally do one in the morning to wake my brain up, and while I'm not sure that thinking about what teams Mike Fetters played for before breakfast is right for everyone, it absolutely works for me. The categories impose some structure, and the whole of baseball history provides the field of play, from freshly called-up zoomers with aspirational Sun Belt-style nameways back to Louisville Colonels with names like Bones and Toad and Chicken.
When the Immaculate Grid was purchased by Sports Reference, the exercise expanded into different sports. There are a lot of Guys to Remember; I will not be addressing how often I use those parts of the Immaculate Grid universe at this time, either. This week, we at Defector are excited to announce a partnership with Sports Reference that we believe will serve to further improve and expand the field of Guy Remembering. Behold Some Guys I Remember From The 21st Century:
The premise of Some Guys I Remember From The 21st Century is simple. It is, in full: Guys you remember from the 21st century. Think of one of those Greatest Films of the 21st Century or Greatest Podcasts of the 21st Century lists, but replace Film/Podcasts with Guys, and Greatest with ... well, whatever you want. The tester I did up there was just an attempt to come up with the most 21st-century Milwaukee Brewers Guys I could think of. If I want to do another one that does not exclude Doug Davis, Bill Hall, and Jeff Cirillo—and I will, in just a moment—I can do just that. The only restriction is that your Guys have to have played in the last 25 years. The rest is yours to arrange. I have tested this product fairly rigorously, and can attest that arrangements of but not limited to ...
- Guys who hit a suspiciously large number of homers in the early '00s
- Guys in whom I took a retrospectively inexplicable interest (positive)
- Guys in whom I took a retrospectively inexplicable interest (negative)
- Facial hair Guys
- Wet Guys
- Notable Todds
- One-year wonder Guys
- Pitchers of unusual size
- Rated Rookie-ass Guys
- Immaculate Grid Guys
... are not just possible, but only the beginning. There's just a lot out there.
We'll be celebrating Defector's pre-birthday week by Remembering Some Guys on Twitch, and everywhere else it is remotely acceptable to Remember Some Guys. We'll be joined by Defector staffers, friends of the site, special guests, and the team at Sports Reference that made this particular dream a reality, at 4:00 p.m. ET each day on Twitch. I'll be hosting a baseball stream this afternoon and a NFL-specific one on Wednesday, and Patrick will host a basketball one—note that Guys, in this capacious usage, also enfolds the WNBA—on Thursday.
You are invited to join us, and to craft your own Grid with your own Guys, as many times as you deem necessary or appropriate, and then to disseminate those Grids wherever and however you think they should be disseminated. That is your business! Just know that you will be supported in filling those Grids however you like.
Thank you for making (nearly) five years of Defector possible. We wouldn't be able to do any of this without you, and could not be more grateful to be able to keep on doing it.
