******* The Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network******* >From The Desk Of
Maury Maille Puzzler Tower Car Talk Plaza Hahvahd Squayah Our Fair City This Week's Puzzler: Lefty Wins the Game Without a Pitch RAY: Lefty McDougal, star pitcher of the Kenosha Ramblers, had an incentive clause in his contract that guaranteed him an extra thousand bucks if he won 20 games during the season. TOM: This sounds like 1925! RAY: It's last game of the season. Lefty has 19 victories, and is scheduled to be that day's starting pitcher. The opponent is a lousy team. They've got a terrible record, and Lefty knows he's going to get the bonus. As luck would have it, an hour before the game his manager approaches him and says, "You ain't starting, Lefty." Lefty asks, "Why not?" The manager says, "The owner of the team came and said, 'If you start this bum... if he throws even one pitch, you're losing your job!'" Lefty's dejected. He says, "Jeez, I was going buy a new house in the Hamptons with that thousand bucks!" Lefty's discouraged, and the manager is discouraged too, because he has great regard for Lefty. The manager wonders, "How can I get Lefty to win his 20th game and collect his bonus-- and not throw a single pitch?" And that's what happens. Lefty wins the game without throwing a single pitch. How did he do it? Got an answer? Drop us a note via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html If you're right and we select your answer, we'll ship you a $26 Shameless Commerce Gift Certificate. Want to listen to Raymond obfuscate the puzzler in person? Listen anytime, at http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ ************ Remember last week's puzzler? Playing Cards with Ray RAY: We're going to play a little card game. I'm going to deal out 21 cards from an ordinary deck of cards into a pile in front of us. We're going to alternate taking cards from the pile. Here are the rules: When it's your turn, you can take as many as three cards, but you must take at least one. So, you can take one, two, or three cards from the pile. The winner of the game is who ever picks up the last card, or cards, from the table. For example, if there are six cards left and I pick up three, you will pick up the last three, because we're alternating turns, and you would win. So, clearly if there were six cards left, I wouldn't take three. The question is, is there a strategy you could use that would guarantee you would win? Ready for the answer? Here you go: http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ So, did you figure it out? Yours in weekly puzzler torment, Maury Maille Puzzler Dissemination Specialist Car Talk Plaza ******************* Doing some car research? Via our lousy, little homepage you can... *Check important safety recalls *See what your car is worth right now *Check rebates and incentives on new cars *Search your town for new or used cars for sale *Place an ad to sell your car that'll actually be seen by people in your area *Research and compare new vehicles *Get the latest car news *Kill time until 5:00 p.m. rolls around and you can pack it in. *It's all at http://www.cartalk.com *********************************** Got more time to kill? This past weekend's new, lousy Car Talk show is now on the web site, at http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/Show/ ******************** Help Ray lose the night sweats he's been getting, trying to come up with a decent puzzler each week. E-mail him your suggestion any time, via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html ******************** Puzzled out? You can unsubscribe to the Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network anytime at http://www.cartalk.com/ct/maillist.jsp?puzzler_list=subscribe#psychic We'll forgive you.
