#185: October 4, 2023 (with Sean Riley)

Craig Elsten and Sean Riley wrap up the week with a creative grid...while Sean highlights some key stories (A-Rod out of the HOF, comparison between Dwight Evans and Andre Dawson), Craig got a creative wind in the morning and filled his grid out exclusively with first basemen! Plenty of fun baseball conversation follows, wide-ranging and we hope engaging.

Craig Elsten and Sean Riley navigate their way through Immaculate Grid #186, which as of the time of recording was only conceding 4.6 correct answers on average out of 9! The guys talk about the eternal difficulty of finding players with 200+ hit seasons, as well as some great stories about the Ulitmate Grid Sicko, the Lou Brock-Ernie Broglio trade, and more! Send an email for tomorrow's mailbag episode: [email protected]

Craig Elsten and Sean Riley go through one of the more challenging Immaculate Grids of the week (5.4 average correct), talking about the 1993 Blue Jays, low-average power hitting shortstops, the brilliant strand rate of Rollie Fingers, and much more!

Craig Elsten is joined by the baseball Immaculate Gridmaster himself, Adam Darowski, for a special episode that begins with mailbag questions from the listeners for Adam. Then, the boys go square-by-square through Grid #180, including a secret theme (and sub-theme) for Craig's grid, and a "junk wax grid" from Adam!

Sean Riley returns for his second appearance of the week, joining Craig Elsten to go square-by-square through Immaculate Grid #179, including:A great example of the dangers of overuse from a former Reds aceA closer who Sean gave up on far too early thanks to some bad scoutingA Hall of Famer who was also a Comeback Player of the Year...and much more!Send in any questions for tomorrow's mailbag at [email protected]

Craig Elsten is joined by the Gridmaster himself, Adam Darowski, Director of Product for Sports Reference and the man who helps plan the Immaculate Grid daily. After answering some questions about how the grid is made, the guys go square-by-square through Grid #178, filled with Hall of Famers and some great players from the past. Make sure to send email questions for Craig and Adam to [email protected], we'll have a mailbag episode on Friday!

Craig Elsten is joined by former White Sox and Dodgers GM Dan Evans for a special edition of Immaculate Talk! Dan knows his stuff, and today's Sicko Tuesday edition of the show will feature Dan running circles around Craig in a Rookie of the Year performance! Enjoy the baseball banter...

With Joe Sheehan on hiatus, Craig Elsten is joined by former Strat-o-Matic World Champion Sean Riley to go square-by-square through Immaculate Grid #176, including The heartbreak of growing up an Angels fanSomething you'll never believe Mike Trout didn't doThe second-best leadoff hitter of the 1980sA couple different Shawn Green stories...and more!

Today's show starts with a pair of non-grid topics. First, Craig Elsten talks about his trip to the ballpark last night, watching the Padres come within three outs of a no-hitter, and the guys talk about Blake Snell's dominant pitching performance. Then, Joe Sheehan discusses why he needs to take a brief hiatus from the show in order to concentrate his schedule on writing the newsletter during the postseason. Immaculate Talk will take Thursday and Friday off this week, and Craig will return with rotating co-hosts the following week, find out who on the podcast. Last but DEFINITELY not least, the guys go square-by-square through Grid #171, with some eerie coincidences along the way...Same two players, swapped into adjacent boxesBoth Joe and Craig brick the same boxThe guys match an ENTIRE ROW