January 28, 2011

Changing Speeds

National BPuzzle Day

by Ken Funck

This weekend in New York City, a strong contingent of BP staff members will be joining an even stronger contingent of baseball fans at Foley’s Pub in Manhattan to celebrate SABR Day. For those of you lucky enough to have a ticket you’re likely in for a treat, as it looks to be a wicked event to be followed by an even more wicked after-party.

There’s another national celebration on tap for this weekend, however. SABR Day happens to coincide with National Puzzle Day on Saturday, which to me seems perfectly appropriate. Those interested in pondering sabermetric mysteries have a lot in common with puzzle junkies, as both groups are answer seekers who enjoy little more than an intellectual challenge, and I suspect a Venn diagram describing those two groups would show a large amount of overlap. With that in mind, in honor of both events you can find below three BP-related puzzles for your amusement.

The first is a simple crossword puzzle with somewhat cryptic clues; the answer set involves the names of numerous current and former BP contributors as well as terms that you’ve seen bandied about our quaint interweb homestead over the years. If you’ve been part of the BP reader community for a while I don’t expect this will be too hard, but when creating puzzles it can be difficult to know whether you’ve pitched the clues to the appropriate level. If they turn out to be too hard, perhaps I can post an alternate clue set in the comments.

The second is a special BP version of the Sudoku—I’m calling it a BProdoku—with the numbers one through nine replaced by images of nine current BP contributors. To solve it, just make sure that, say, my picture (or name) shows up exactly once in each row, each column, and each section, just as you would with a Sudoku. I’ve made these sorts of puzzles before (e.g., substituting Wisconsin beer labels for numbers for my now intermittently-held Novemberfest beer tasting and trivia party), and it’s surprising how much more difficult it can be to do these when you’re no longer dealing with the nine digits you’re used to seeing.

The third is a standard Cryptoquote, appropriate for the day.

Answers will be posted on Monday morning, and if you were to ask me how best to print these so you can work on them in hard-copy form, my answer would be this: "You’re good at solving puzzles. You figure it out." Hope you enjoy them.

 

Puzzle #1: A Crossword Cross-Section of BP History

 

Across

1 Performance that's hard to prove (6)

4 Descriptor of situational importance (8)

6 "Scout v. Stat" liquid (4)

8 The product of skill interaction at its peak (5)

9 Dexter and overspecialized (5)

10 Oft-misunderstood literary catchall (9)

13 Provides analysis that's more than skin deep (9)

14 Our Spielberg (5)

15 Not a member of The Tribe, though both a chief and a scout (9)

18 He Keeps Immobility Next to Godliness (8)

20 Or, more simply, "Young Pitchers Often Break" (9)

21 A member of The Tribe (7)

23 Sinister and overspecialized (5)

24 Predicted both the pros and the College (6)

25 So smart and innovative, he gives us the shakes (9)

Down

2 Is not 17 Down (11)

3 Organization we're celebrating this weekend (4)

4 BBWAA, Q&A (7)

5 Our Oracle, originally in Excel (6)

6 Stereotypical stathead lair (8)

7 Annual reverse-hibernator (7)

11 Wrote Today, and still writes most days (7)

12 "Scout v. Stat" solids (5)

16 Voros' party contribution (4)

17 Isn't proven by 2 Down (9)

19 The first to wishcast (5)

21 Shatner's favorite metric (4)

22 Jabberwock's favorite metric (4)

 

 

Puzzle #2: Bow to Your Sensei! It’s the BProdoku!

 

 

 

Puzzle #3: A SABR-Toothed Cryptoquote, or, Maybe We Can Hunt Them To Extinction

 

QGEQ   SB   QGC   CZQSYC   RSXXCYCZIC   NCQFCCZ   BENCYOCQYSIB   EZR

QYERSQSDZEJ   BHDYQBFYSQSZU.   SQ   SBZ’Q   QGC   KBC   DX   BQEQSBQSIB .

SQ  SBZ'Q  QGC  KBC  DX  XDYOKJEB.  SQ  SB  OCYCJT  QGC  GENSQ  DX

NCUSZZSZU  FSQG  E  WKCBQSDZ, YEQGCY  QGEZ  NCUSZZSZU  FSQG

EZ EZBFCY. –  NSJJ  VEOCB

Ken Funck is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @KenFunck
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