6.11.2010

Solution: I Don't Feel Well

This puzzle has two distinct parts, along with several little hints along the way to get you going in the right direction, so to speak. Let's look at Campanella's riddle first.
“In flesh and blood and bone and joint,
I greet you well, but here's the point.
If you your wandering soul would tame
First hear me out then speak your name.
My sigil tens and ones provide
Then trophies for the rivals’ side
The clipper's hallowed sequence next
Then digits worn by one who's vexed
By queen of flushing's bitter cup
Last count those Loney tallied up
One fateful day in Denver-town.”
He sets up the question in the first four lines, and begins the riddle proper in line 5 "My sigil tens and ones provide". The clues all seem to imply numbers, so we take Campanella's 39 for the "tens and ones". Next, we'll take the trailing clues in sequence.

Trophies for the rivals side = 0 (SF Giants Championships)
The Clipper's hallowed sequence = 56 (DiMaggio's hitting streak)
Number worn by one who's vexed = 97 (old friend Joe Beimel)
Loney tallied up...in Denver-town = 9 (Record for RBI's in a game)

If the first numbers were tens and ones, then these would probably be on the right side of the decimal point. We get a result of 39.056979. That doesn't do anything for us on it's own, so let's move on to the creepy pitcher's clue (remembering that you walked west).


"It counts for naught that us you knew
If you cannot remember YOU!
The catcher's riddle struck you dumb?
For us, you now must take our sum.
Ducal XBH in blue,
Then games we trailed but soon recouped
In one score hundred year and four.
Just one last clue, now count the score
The nine and fifty innings straight
The bulldog threw in eighty-eight.
The name you find will be your own."
They state that you should take their sum. 58 for Billingsley plus 36 for Weaver gets you 94. The next clues follow in form with the first set.

Ducal extra base hits in blue = 814 (Duke Snider's career XBH's as a Dodger)
Trailed but lead...one score hundred = 53 (Come back wins in 2004)
Score in nine and fifty innings straight = 0 (Orel's consecutive scoreless record)

The result is 94.814530, using the same method as the first set. If we take include the directional clues, we get North 39.056979, West 94.814530. Now that, we can use! Dropping those coordinates into Google Maps gets you just west of Kansas City (KC) to "Blake Street".

Being the geography wizard that you are, of course you shout "Casey Blake" when prompted for your name!

Thanks to all those who participated. Updated standings will be posted shortly.

3 comments:

Josh S. said...

When I didn't have the Beimel part worked out, filling in random digits in the longitude still showed me Blake St. Of course, I was thinking, "WHICH BLAKE?!" I didn't make the KC connection right away because Google Maps was telling me Edwardsville.

Great puzzle!

Nostradamus said...

@Josh

I was hoping that there would be an intersection of Casey and Blake somewhere, but it was not to be.

Nostradamus said...

Hmm...I'm going to have to go back and retool the difficulty level a bit. I thought this one would be an easier one.