If you are of a certain age or have relatives of a certain age, you’ve considered various means of staving off forgetfulness, dementia or senility. I’m not talking about the various prescriptions or miracle OTC options advertised on television or radio.

Regardless of our age, we do different things to stay mentally sharp. Consume more blueberries, play Sudoku, Wordle, play card games, do crossword puzzles, paint, draw, dance etc. About a month or so, a couple friends asked if I had jumped on the Immaculate Grid bandwagon-until then I hadn’t. After an initial blunder, I’m hooked because it plays into my love of baseball and meaningless trivia. However, I think it will keep me somewhat sharp.

Without doing too deep a dive into the specifics, I’ll outline the general premise. Baseball-Reference generates and 3×3, nine space grid. There are three categories across the top and 3 down the left side. One has to fill in the spaces so that each player qualifies for each space. More often than not team names are involved and occasional statistical category.

I usually don’t spend more than 10 minutes jarring my memory in the hopes of choosing more obscure players that fit the bill. Discussing one’s choices, successes and failures is akin to sharing your fantasy football roster.

Maybe it’s coincidental, but in the weeks that I’ve been filling out my grids, I’ve had the happy occasion to revisit many players of my youth. While I haven’t used Ken Boswell, Elliott Maddox, or Gary Nolan as any of my answers, my thoughts have drifted back to games that I saw or baseball cards that I have or had.

Jogging my baseball memory has led to some enjoyable conversations with friends who are almost as goofy about the game as I am. At present, I’m still forgetting where my glasses are and what assignment I had the past week but am still able to pull up 65-70 different guys that played for the Cubs between 1971 and ’75.  I don’t think it’s going to win me any bets, or less than scary looks from strangers, but it may serve as some baseline for when my memory does start to fail me big time.

Despite never setting foot in Houston, Texas I can still go 25 or 30 deep on the 1973 Houston Astros. Other than an older cousin with whom I share a fondness for ’70’s, I don’t know anyone that occasionally thinks about Mike Jorgenson and Tommy Hutton. They pop into my conscience because there are so many current players whose numbers are far worse than these two left-handed hitting first baseman, but are praised as if they are solutions to roster problems.

The once category that leaves me stymied is WAR. I can only guess when they ask for a player with a WAR of 6+ for an individual season. I have no idea what separates a 5.8 from a 6 WAR season. I have a better idea if a player reached .300, 3 homers, 200 strikeouts in a given season, but silver sluggers and WAR, not so much.

Von Joshua, Doc Medich, John Bateman, and Gene Richards are just a few names that popped into my head as I’m typing this. Is that a good thing or should I consult a professional?