What Immaculate Grid Is#
Immaculate Grid is a daily trivia puzzle presenting a 3×3 grid where each row and column carries a criterion — a team, an award, a stat threshold, a college, and so on — and players must name one real athlete who satisfies both the row's and column's requirements for all nine cells. It takes its name from baseball's 'immaculate inning,' in which a pitcher strikes out the side on nine pitches.
Software engineer and baseball fan Brian Minter built the original baseball version and launched it in April 2023; by mid-June that year it was drawing over 100,000 plays a day. Sports Reference LLC, the company behind Baseball-Reference, Pro-Football-Reference, and its sister sites, acquired Immaculate Grid on July 11, 2023 — its first move into publishing playable games alongside its statistics databases.
How to Play#
Players get nine guesses total, one per cell, and can fill cells in any order. A correct answer locks in a rarity percentage — the share of other players who landed on the same name — so a common answer like a Hall of Famer scores worse for bragging rights than an obscure journeyman who also qualifies. An incorrect or already-used name burns a guess without filling a cell.
Since Sports Reference's acquisition, the format has expanded past baseball into other major U.S. pro leagues and soccer, each with its own daily grid and criteria drawn from the relevant Sports Reference database, with the puzzle folded directly into Baseball-Reference.com alongside its stat pages.
Why Rarity, Not Correctness, Is the Real Score#
Because filling all nine cells correctly is achievable for any attentive fan, Immaculate Grid's competitive hook is its aggregate rarity score, tallied once players worldwide have submitted that day's grid — turning a solo trivia exercise into an implicit contest against everyone else who played, and pushing players toward the least obvious qualifying name rather than the first one that comes to mind.
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Frequently Asked Questions#
Who created Immaculate Grid, and who owns it now?
Brian Minter built and launched the original baseball version in April 2023; Sports Reference LLC acquired it on July 11, 2023.
How many guesses do you get?
Nine, one per cell of the 3×3 grid.
Is Immaculate Grid still baseball-only?
No. It has expanded to other major U.S. pro sports and soccer under Sports Reference, each with its own daily grid.
More Games Like Immaculate Grid#
A Wikipedia article with almost every word blacked out; reveal common words one at a time until you can name the subject.
The NBA guessing game: team, position, height, and age comparisons steer you to the mystery player.
Guess the price of a Costco product within 5%, higher/lower style. Weirdly compelling, entirely free.
Or browse all of them on our games like Wordle.
Daily Puzzles, Our Way
Play today's NerdleBuddy puzzle, or use the Classic Nerdle solver to choose a next guess from your tile feedback.