TriviaSports

Immaculate Grid

Name nine athletes who each fit both the row and the column of a 3x3 sports grid.

Every day: One new grid a day, the same for every player: nine squares to fill with athletes who match both a row and a column clue, scored by how rare each answer is. New puzzle: Once a day; the site does not state the time.

Play Immaculate Grid on immaculategrid.com

Play on Sports Reference

A baseball Immaculate Grid with team logos and stat categories, one square filled with a player at 2 percent rarity

Immaculate Grid is a daily sports trivia game played on a 3x3 grid. Every row and column is a team, award or stat, and you fill each square with a player who matches both. You get nine guesses, and a rarity score rewards answers few other people thought of.

About Immaculate Grid

Immaculate Grid began as a side project by Brian Minter, a software developer in Atlanta. The first baseball grid went up on April 4, 2023, and the name comes from the immaculate inning, when a pitcher strikes out the side on nine pitches. After it spread on Reddit and Twitter that summer, Sports Reference bought the game in July 2023 and soon added football, men's basketball and hockey grids, followed by a soccer version called Immaculate Footy and a women's basketball grid.

A round is simple to explain. The three rows and three columns each carry a label, such as a franchise, an award like MVP, or a career milestone. For each of the nine squares you type a player, active or retired, who meets both labels. You have nine guesses in total, wrong ones included, and once a player is used he cannot appear in another square.

What keeps people coming back is the rarity score. Next to each correct answer you see what share of other players picked the same name. Your rarity is the sum of those shares across the grid, with an empty square counting as 100, so a low score means you found deep cuts rather than the obvious stars. Getting all nine right is only half the game; doing it with obscure names is the other half.

It suits sports fans who like to argue about careers and trades, and it is short enough to play over coffee. Because the answer lists link back to the Sports Reference databases, it is also an easy way to fall into an hour of reading old box scores.

How to play Immaculate Grid

  1. Pick a sport and open today's grid.
  2. Read the label on each row and column; each one is a team, award or statistic.
  3. Click a square and type a player who fits both its row and its column, then choose him from the list.
  4. Repeat for the other squares; you have nine guesses in total and each player can be used only once.
  5. When the guesses run out or the grid is full, check your correct count and rarity score.

Tips

  • Players who moved between many teams are your friends on team-and-team squares.
  • Fill the hardest squares first, while you still have every player available.
  • Retired players count, and old franchise names usually count for their current team.
  • For a low rarity score, skip the first star who comes to mind and look for a role player who fits.
  • Check the answer lists after you finish; they show which names you could have used.

Questions

Who made Immaculate Grid?

Brian Minter, a software developer from Atlanta, launched it in April 2023. Sports Reference bought it in July 2023 and runs it now.

What is the rarity score?

For each correct answer you get the percentage of players who chose the same name. The scores are added up, with empty squares counting as 100, so lower is better and 0 is the best possible.

Which sports does Immaculate Grid cover?

It started with baseball and now has grids for football, basketball, hockey and soccer, plus a women's basketball version.

Do wrong guesses cost anything?

Yes. You have nine guesses for the whole grid, so every miss leaves one square empty.

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