162-0 started with 82-0, the viral NBA game at 82-0.com where a slot machine hands you a team and a decade and you draft a five-man lineup of all-time greats to chase a perfect season. We got completely hooked on it, and almost immediately found ourselves wishing for a baseball version. Basketball is a five-player puzzle, but baseball is nine spots, a hundred and sixty-two games, and more than a century of statistical history to pull from. That felt like the perfect canvas.

The deeper pull, though, was the numbers. Baseball fans have argued about stats forever, from batting average and RBIs to OPS and the modern wave of advanced metrics, and a huge part of the fun is comparing players who never shared a field. Was a 1930s slugger really better than a 2020s star, or did he just play in a friendlier era? 162-0 is our excuse to keep having that argument. The era adjustment under the hood is our attempt to give a Negro Leagues legend, a dead-ball-era contact hitter, and a launch-angle masher a fair seat at the same table.

So this is a love letter to box scores and bar-stool debates as much as it is a game. All credit to the creators of 82-0 for the spark. We just wanted to see it played out on a diamond.