#600 - "Umpire State of Mind"

[Cindy]

I submitted. We'll see.

He updated at 5:07. Are you there?

Unfortunately, no. I still think my idea is the right one, just didn't get the correct ones. Baseball is not my forte.

I’ve submitted now.

[Laura M]

Not gonna get this one either. Oh well, at least I don't have a streak to break! Congrats to Al, and I also see Meg and Toby on the leaderboard, wow!

[ChrisKochmanski]

Well, you can beam me up, BUT ... I feel guilty about submitting, because it wasn't just a nudge I got from another solver -- it was more like a SHOVE.

So with my entry, I asked Matt that if he draws my name for the prize, he should draw again. For a DESERVING solver!

Now looking back, I'm seeing, as usual for a real stumper like this, how I could have gotten to it on my own. In fact, there were at least a couple of times I was stumbling into the right path, but I guess I just wasn't seeing it.

[Eckless]

I've spent more hours staring at this puzzle than I'd care to admit...but the solution FINALLY came to me. Keep trying! It is possible!

[jakeorjacob]

So many rabbit holes, and the most frustrating thing is that I feel like I’m VERY close. Hesitant to ask for an assist since it’s a week 5 and I’m not protecting a streak, but it would be great to see if I was on the right track.

[FrankieHeck]

I think I'm going to have to take a well-earned "nope" on this one. We can't have too many people taking hints for this...Matt will think his Week 5s are too easy, and it will just get worse in the future! Congrats to everyone who figured this one out. Looking forward to some new puzzles today. I so hope they are not baseball-themed.

[anjhinz]

I'm still nowhere after a long weekend, lots of ideas and rabbit holes, but nothing coherent. Going to stare at it a little bit longer, but would appreciate a nudge... though i WILL NOT submit an answer, I still enjoy figuring out the rest of the 90% (that's how we learn, right??)

[damefox]

I haven't had as much time to look at this one as I'd like. I'll keep trying on my own until the deadline, but if someone wants to send me a hint that I can look at after the deadline (before I just go straight to the solution) if I still haven't gotten it, it would be much appreciated.

[balshetzer]

It would be fun to have a set of nudges for a puzzle, even if after the deadline. This way I could get some practice in on solving rather than just staring at the page. Staring at the page is not very good practice and neither is just getting the whole answer.

[Eckless]

After the solution is posted over at CrosswordFiend, I'll post a few "nudges" here.

[Meg]

100 submissions. 65 correct. That’s a LOT of wrong entries. Makes me think there’s an alternative answer maybe. Or it’s Hail Mary time.

[Hector]

I've sent in a Hail Mary, which is almost certainly wrong, despite "making sense." Congrats to all solvers!

[Leslie]

I haven't had as much time to look at this one as I'd like. I'll keep trying on my own until the deadline, but if someone wants to send me a hint that I can look at after the deadline (before I just go straight to the solution) if I still haven't gotten it, it would be much appreciated.

I would also love a gentle hint at noon before looking at the solution. Just couldn’t figure out what to do with all the bits and pieces. The good news is I got my older son involved while he was home for Thanksgiving (since I know nothing about baseball) and he was very interested, so I’m going to give him a subscription to MGWCC!

[sharkicicles]

Due to the holiday I didn’t even get a chance to finish the grid this week... but reading Joon’s recap pretty sure I wouldn’t have had a chance anyway.

[Eckless]

So here are some nudges and then a couple of pushes to the solution (which has now been posted in the comments at CrosswordFiend). And note if you know "nothing" about baseball, this one is going to be very difficult.


NUDGE 1:

Note that all of the pitches are across clues. You probably also noticed there's something wacky going on with 19A. (The "wacky" part of 23D is irrelevant.)



NUDGE 2:

The title contains the word "umpire". Of the pitches, which ones are balls? Which ones are strikes? (this one does require a bit of outside knowledge if you're not familiar with baseball terminology)



NUDGE 3:

Each of the "pitches" is connected with the other across entry in its row.



PUSH 1:

At the end of the 7th pitch, what describes the batter's situation? (again, might require outside knowledge if you're not familiar with baseball)



PUSH 2:

If for "push 1" you used a phrase, try using numbers instead.

[balshetzer]

I had the counts and I tried using them to index into something but I didn't come up with the right way. I used it as coordinates in the grid. I used it to take letters from the grid based on clue number based on summing the numbers and concatenating the numbers (i.e. 3-2 is 32) in both base ten and base 8 because of 1D.

Of course, that doesn't include the hundreds of other rabbit holes including finding this exact pitch sequence in a game on April 14 with deGrom pitching for the Mets against ATL in which the eighth pitch was a swinging strikeout for Flowers.

[FrankieHeck]

The fact that some of you could even read those pitches and come up with these "counts" you speak of makes you all wizards to me

[joequavis]

ugh this feels like one I should have had. I got the counts no problem (even considered that from the umpire's point of view, when he holds up the count, he does so backwards so that the pitcher sees it correctly)...

I got caught up assuming the counts were in OCTAL and trying to convert them to decimal (engineer in me...). Fruitless as this was, I nevertheless kept trying to make that work instead of trying a new tack.

Other rabbit hole was the "A" was in the black, and a popular baseball term is "painting the black". Based on tenses, you could make an argument that there was a missing "P" to make FOUL TIP (P) ED. So I was looking for three more letters in the black.

In short, I made this harder than it actually was. Very clever puzzle and mechanism. This baseball fan just came up short. I actually considered CALLED BALL FOUR as a hail mary. Along with STRUCK OUT SWINGING, BACKWARDS K, etc.

[joequavis]

oh, and did anyone else notice ATL ANT (missing A) in the grid???

[FrankieHeck]

At least I stopped myself before I rented "Rookie of the Year" to see if those pitches were in it....just because I made the mistake of googling "Busey baseball"...