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        riddles >> what happened >> Take me out to the Ball Game
        
(Message started by: denis on Aug 13^th, 2007, 5:49pm)

Title: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 13^th, 2007, 5:49pm

(note: don't worry about the length of the riddle. Most of it is fluff anyway and is just added for entertainment value).

Raj, and John were sharing a beer and discussing the difference in their respective country’s sports culture.

“Since I arrived here yesterday, I can exclaim with certainty that I have experienced culture shock. And why is it you call this “football”, a sport that hardly uses your foot to move the ball around. We have the real football and yours is just a cheap imitation.” Raj exclaimed as he sips into his drink.

“Ha! You call soccer a sport?” was John’s reply. “It’s so boring. So little scoring. As soon as a team scores they go on defence and shut everything down. 1-nil or 2-1 if your lucky. How many nil-nil games have you seen? And all the players diving and faking injuries to draw those funny red and yellow cardboards!!! Disgraceful. And you call a soccer field a “pitch”… Whats up with that? Where I’m from a pitch is when we throw the baseball to the home plate.”

Raj almost chokes on his beer. “Talk about boring! In baseball, you have dead time 90% of the time. When something happens, it lasts about 10 seconds and then you fall asleep again. At least in cricket we can run up the score a lot more. There’s a lot more action there. And we don’t need steroids to produce our heroes either.”

“Well Raj, tomorrow after your assignment I will take you to a good old fashioned American World Series game. The Arizona Diamondbacks are here in New York tonight and tomorrow. These are the World Series and here you will get to see a real pitch. In fact, check this out on the TV. President George W. Bush is throwing the ceremonial pitch right now in tonight's game. Take a good look at the man at he head the world's most powerful nation throwing a "real" pitch."

“World Series? You call a competition with teams from only two countries a “World Series”?

“Well, I’ll be looking forward to the game so I can prove you wrong” was John’s reply.

“So here is the plan Raj… Tomorrow, you proceed to Mr Sanders residence at 6pm, you kill him and then change the time on his watch to 8pm. Then you break it so that the time stops and leads the inspectors’ to believe the murder occurred around 8pm. You then proceed to Yankee Stadium (here is your ticket). I will be there with a lot of other people who will witnesses you presence there around 8pm. The perfect alibi my friend.”

So the next evening, Raj drives up to the victim’s home at 6pm, breaks into it and kills his victim with a single gunshot. He then simulates a struggles by breaking a few objects. Next, he sets the victim’s watch to 8pm then breaks the watch so that the time stops at 8pm. He left a bunch of finger prints at the scene, but he was not concerned as he was only in the US for a couple of days (leaving the country the next day) and the US authorities has no record of his finger prints anyways so no way of identifying him from the database.

As Raj was speeding out of the victim’s driveway at about 6:30pm, a man with a white cane and sunglasses was walking tentatively across the driveway. He was holding on to the harness in which was fitted to a guide dog. Raj had to suddenly stop to avoid hitting the man and dog. The squealing brakes startelled the man which dropped the cane in panic. “Hey are you blind or something?” Raj yelled at him sarcastically. “Why don’t you watch where you are going”? And then, went around him and sped off to Yankee stadium for the game.

At the stadium, Raj and John were enjoying the game with John explaining to him all the different rules and what was transpiring on the field. Raj Exclaimed, “this is truly entertaining.. Much better than on TV except that you don’t get to see instant replays of all the close calls on the jumbo monitor”.

“Oh, that’s the umpires union. They don’t want 40,000 people to see how they blew a close call. When you are working at the office, wouldn’t you hate it if 40,000 people watch and react to every little mistake that you make?” Jonh said with a smile.

As a bonus, Raj was able to catch a fly ball that went into the crowd. He held it up for all to see as the fans cheered his prowess.

By the eight inning, the police had converged around Raj’s seat and arrested him.

In the interrogation, Raj was adamant that he was at the stadium from 7pm onwards so that he could not have been at the scene when the murder occurred. The inspector replies, “well your fingerprints are all over the place so 7pm or 8pm really doesn’t matter. You could have easily reset the watch and break it.”

“So how did you trace the murder back to me? My fingerprints are not in any police database. So that coudn’t be what gave me away”. Raj inquired.

“We have a witness that placed you at the scene at 6:30pm. He was walking back home at 8pm when he saw all the police cars in the driveway. He gave a statement to us that he saw a car fleeing the scene. Later on, he saw you and recognized you on TV at the baseball game during one of those closeups when you caught the ball. It was just our luck that he was watching the game that night and recognised you. He phoned us immediately which gave us ample time to have our police agents stationned at the stadium to arrest you. He also picked you out of a police lineup of 10 other guys. So as far as we’re concerned, it’s case closed.”

Raj was flabbergasted. “How is it possible?”, there is no way anyone saw me leave.”

“Oh he saw you leave all right, you almost ran him over”, “you yelled out something like, ‘are you blind or something’, remember that?”.

“But he was blind I tell you. The man could not see two inches in front of him”.

The inspector replied: “Oh we wasn’t blind at all. It only seemed that way.”

“So you guys had an agent at the right place and the right time correct”?

“No, this witness is not one of us. He just happened to be there at the right time”.

At that moment, Raj flushed. He was certain that the only way this could happen was that John had betrayed him and that he planted a witness there to catch him leaving the scene of the murder.

“So I was betrayed by my own accomplice wasn’t I”?

The inspector replied “we are 100% certain that your accomplice had nothing to do with you getting caught. It was just your bad luck”.

How can the inspectors know this for sure?

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by Grimbal on Aug 14^th, 2007, 12:41am

Objection, your Honor! The line-up doesn't prove anything. The blind man just picked the guy he saw on TV moments earlier, and who was arrested because of that. It is no proof that he was on the murder scene.

But that doesn't answer the question.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by JiNbOtAk on Aug 14^th, 2007, 2:51am

Now, why would a guy with perfect vision pretend he's blind ? The only reason comes to mind is this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfX_u-gnyi4)

Who was the murdered man, and how was he related to Raj ( or John ) ?

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by Grimbal on Aug 14^th, 2007, 3:18am

The dog, is it called Scoobidoo?

Anyway, the question is not whether the man is blind or not, who was the victim or how people relate to each other.

The question is:
How can the inspectors know for sure that Raj's accomplice had nothing to do with Raj getting caught.

And the answer is straightforward:
They didn't know he had an accomplice.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 14^th, 2007, 4:09am

Quote:

“Oh, that’s the umpires union. They don’t want 40,000 people to see how they blew a close call. When you are working at the office, wouldn’t you hate it if 40,000 people watch and react to every little mistake that you make?” Jonh said with a smile.

You've got a typo there.

Nice video, but it was a little predictable.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 14^th, 2007, 6:38am

on 08/14/07 at 00:41:08, Grimbal wrote:

The fingerprints prove that Raj was at the scene and corroborates the eye witness' account.

So the question remains, why was the guy pretending to be blind and how can we be relatively sure he not was planted there by John?

on 08/14/07 at 03:18:14, Grimbal wrote:

Agreed they didn't know he had an accomplice. But that of in itself does not vindicate John. They had other information that does that (that information is part of the riddle...Hey, its not all fluff!).

on 08/14/07 at 02:51:56, JiNbOtAk wrote:

Who was the murdered man, and how was he related to Raj ( or John ) ?

The guy who was murdered was not related to John or Raj. He was just another guy John wanted dead.

on 08/14/07 at 02:51:56, JiNbOtAk wrote:

Now, why would a guy with perfect vision pretend he's blind ? The only reason comes to mind is this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfX_u-gnyi4)

That is the crux of the problem. He was pretending in fact. And your solution is pretty good, but not the intended one...

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by Grimbal on Aug 14^th, 2007, 9:39am

Here is my analysis.

Raj isn't surprised when suddenly John mentions his "assignment" and how he is going to kill Mr Sanders. He just happily goes and does as he was told. That means Raj is a hitman. He came to the US for that. And the police can tell that John did not intend to have him caught, because: 1. John would not risk to have Raj talk. 2. John paid the full amount in advance. 3. John provided a return ticket to Raj. 4. The police knows John. A few of his enemies have been murdered in the past, but the murderer never got caught, and John always was at the stadium as an alibi.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 14^th, 2007, 9:42am

That pretty well sums it up. But the stadium alibi was really a convenient one for this particular hit so its not a habit. (Baseball season typically runs from April to October so the stadium is not always available). Also, the police don't necessarily know John (otherwise, they can recognise him at the Stadium when they pickup Raj).

So the basic question is, why was the guy prettending to be blind? What was he doing there?

Here is a pic of the ceremonial pitch that took place in the Diamondback vs Yankee's World series game that Raj and John saw on TV.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by thecow135 on Aug 14^th, 2007, 6:39pm

[hide]bush's secret agents ftw? pretending to be blind to camoflauge the fact that the dogs are bombsniffing dogs?[/hide]

EDIT: i hid my answer for once because it was actually possible =P

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 14^th, 2007, 7:04pm

Nope... not what I was looking for. Bush threw the ceremonial pitch in game #3 of the World series and did not attend the next game when Raj and John went, so no security detail was required.

Nice try but there is a more plausible explanation for the camouflage.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 14^th, 2007, 8:24pm

He was a 'curb crawler', except hoping to get some symapthy in the nice neighbourhood. ::)

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 14^th, 2007, 8:58pm

nope... curb crawling, although possible is still not as plausible as the intended answer.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by Aurora on Aug 15^th, 2007, 7:18am

Maybe the guide dog was nearing the end of it's training and he was pretending to be blind in order that it would provoke the reactions that the dog would experience when working in order to test it.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by Grimbal on Aug 15^th, 2007, 7:40am

I know.

They are all actors. The blind man, John, Raj, the police, the victim, the dog, all actors.
They are shooting a movie telling the a mystery where a guy gets caught after having been seen by a *blind* man on the murder scene and later recognized on TV by the same *blind* guy.
Of course the police knows who is involved in Raj getting caught, they have read the script.

:-[ Well, it could be, right?

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 15^th, 2007, 9:06am

No to all...

Hint: [hide]The Diamondback-Yankees World Series games are significant in addition to just providing the alibi[/hide]

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 15^th, 2007, 5:00pm

They provide the location to Mr Sanders' house? :P

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 15^th, 2007, 5:27pm

Location of the house is not relevant.

What is is why there was a guy in disguise. What was he doing? The hint provides a connection but you have to do a bit of homework to solve it.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by mikedagr8 on Aug 15^th, 2007, 5:51pm

I have enough of that as it is. So no thanks.

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by thecow135 on Aug 16^th, 2007, 2:23pm

so this is game #4?

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by thecow135 on Aug 16^th, 2007, 2:27pm

shoot i got it LOL my first riddle solved XP

[hide]halloween[/hide]

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 16^th, 2007, 3:43pm

on 08/16/07 at 14:27:25, thecow135 wrote:

[hide]halloween[/hide]

We have a winner!

Congrats.

on 08/16/07 at 14:27:25, thecow135 wrote:

my first riddle solved XP

The first one is always the sweetest!

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by JiNbOtAk on Aug 16^th, 2007, 8:29pm

Nice one denis. But if it's Halloween, who/what is the blind guy supposed to be ? And wouldn't a costume party work as well ? :P

<Added: Btw, nice fluff, especially the debate on balls. ;D >

Title: Re: Take me out to the Ball Game
Post by denis on Aug 16^th, 2007, 8:48pm

Well for Halloween in North America, people are in disguises all over the place so you don't really need to set it up as a costume party. Plus with the costume party, you have to have things all line up together with the crime scene etc...so it relies more on chance.

The guy in a blind costume was going "trick or treating", a traditional thing here where they go door to door and collect candies. In a big city, there are litterally thousands of people, mostly kids but some adults as well, walking outside in costumes on this particular date after nightfall. So it was not really surpising or lucky that Raj bumbed into a costumed person on this particular day.

Raj, being from a different culture was not really aware of all this and assumed the "blind" man he saw that night was what it appeared to be. (Anyone from the area would have known this, probably would not have made the same mistake and would have kept their mouth shut so as not have attracted attention).

As you can see, this riddle was about different cultures (sports and otherwise) and took advantage of this so that Raj was oblivious to what was really going on and have him make the usual assumptions during his encounter.

on 08/16/07 at 20:29:31, JiNbOtAk wrote:

Btw, nice fluff, especially the debate on balls. ;D >

Thanks.. I try to add a bit of fun in the riddles now and then.