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'False Alarm' Baseball Cards
The Immaculate Grid for baseball which began on April 4, 2023 at the Baseball Reference website is something I and doubtless many baseball aficionados look forward to each day. The objective is to be as obscure as you can with your answers (picking ballplayers for your answers that the fewest people out there might also pick) and thereby getting a low % score. It's set up like Hollywood Squares or a Tic-Tac-Toe board with 9 squares each with its own 2-part question. I am into this even more than Word Mojo (which has its own section elsewhere on this site) and the N.Y. Times Wordle where I will endeavor furiously to get my average lower than my current 4.34 guesses till kingdom come.
My goal is not just to fill out the grid completely without any wrong guesses (blanks which cost you 100 points!) but to get a super low score hopefully a 1 or even 0 for the whole grid. The grids where I managed to pull that off will be on Misakman's Unofficial MLB Immaculate Grid Help Guide #2: Kick-Ass Grids With Total Score of 1 (or 0)! which is coming soon.
One of the main ways I come up with answers to the grid is flipping through old baseball cards in my mind. If you do the same then Beware Of These Particular Baseball Cards!!! when you recall them. Unthink them for they are traps! Immediate -100s, wrong answers that will ruin your grid and therefore the rest of your day. For whatever reason these guys never actually played a single game for the team the particular card indicates. If you grid answer ties the player to that team you're screwed. You can always check out Baseball Reference at the transaction guide at each player to see what happened (they got retraded or cut or maybe retired etc.) but the bottom line is the cards are false alarms. You can check their stats out too and you will see they have none for the team in question.
The cards featured come only from the years I collected most heavily (1964-1980) and thus cover the 1963-1979 seasons. That is my wheelhouse though I am still quite strong on years prior to and subsequent to that. Rookie cards are not included since they are a crapshoot anyway and Topps was just trying to pick the best prospects many of whom hadn't been up with the big club yet. You have to give them a pass there but in the meantime...don't pick Lou Piniella for Senators (Rangers) or for Pilots (Brewers)! He has rookie cards for them yet never played a game for either. Heed The Misakman or face unnecessary peril.
OK! Check 'em out! Ever the completist, I don't believe I left anyone out.
Don't use these guys on these teams for quiz answers! They never played a single game for them!