The Baseball Mysteries

by Jerry Butters, Jim Henle

The Baseball Challenging Puzzles for Logical Detectives is a book of baseball puzzles, logical baseball puzzles. To jump in, all you need is logic and a casual fan’s knowledge of the game. The puzzles are solved by reasoning from the rules of the game and a few facts. The logic in the puzzles is like legal reasoning. A solution must argue from evidence (the facts) and law (the rules). Unlike legal arguments, however, a solution must reach an unassailable conclusion. There are many puzzle books. But there’s nothing remotely like this book. The puzzles here, while rigorously deductive, are firmly attached to actual events, to struggles that are reported in the papers every day. The puzzles offer a unique and scintillating connection between abstract logic and gritty reality. Actually, this book offers the reader an unlimited number of puzzles. Once you’ve solved a few of the challenges here, every boxscore you see in the papers or online is a new puzzle! It can be anywhere from simple, to complex, to impossible. Jerry Butters has a BA in mathematics from Oberlin College, and an MS in mathematics and a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. He taught mathematics for two years at Mindanao State University in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer. He taught economics for five years at Princeton University. For most of his career, he worked on consumer protection cases and policy issues at the Federal Trade Commission. In his retirement, he has become a piano teacher and performer. He enjoys hobbies ranging from reading Chinese to practicing Taiji. This book is an outgrowth of another of his hobbies―his love of designing and solving puzzles of all sorts. Jim Henle has a BA in mathematics from Dartmouth College and a PhD from M.I.T. He taught for two years at U. P. Baguio in the Philippines as a Peace Corps volunteer, two years at a middle school as alternative service, and 42 years at Smith College. His research is primarily in logic and set theory, with additional papers in geometry, graph theory, number theory, games, economics, and music. He edited columns for The Mathematical Intelligencer. He authored or co-authored five books. His most recent book, The Proof and the Pudding , compares mathematics and gastronomy. He has collaborated with Jerry on puzzle papers and chamber music concerts.

262 pages, Paperback

Published May 18, 2023

Reviews

[Dave Schoettinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book for general readers, it is a book of puzzles. All of the puzzles have to do with interpreting baseball box scores. If you are unfamiliar with baseball, but enjoy solving mathematical conundrums, the authors explain enough of the rules of baseball and keeping score so that you can process the information in the box scores. The puzzles ask you to deduce information about the game not explicitly given in the box score. If you are a baseball fan and have been studying box scores for most your life, you will find yourself way ahead of the authors in the early pages and can enjoy reviewing the many box scores of actual games on which some of the puzzles are based. In the later chapters the authors have found that actual games are not challenging enough and have invented highly unlikely scenarios on which to base their puzzles that will leave the math averse shaking their heads in dismay.

[Kevin Hogg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough book to rate. I didn't realize when I bought it that the entire book was based on deducing information from box scores. I found it interesting in the first chapter, but then started to catch on that it was all the same basic idea. However, there were new approaches in each chapter, so I definitely wouldn't say that it was entirely repetitive. Perhaps the word "mysteries" in the title could be a bit misleading. It made me anticipate that some puzzles would deal with eccentricities in baseball rules or oddities in the game.

There were a couple of what appear to be minor errors. For example, on page 38, the game is between Cleveland and Oakland, but then the pitching stats show Los Angeles and Oakland (which could very well be in the original box score). There were very rare and never impacted the clarity or the reader's ability to solve the puzzles. Likewise, the printing of my copy was slanted (the printing at the top of each page had a one-centimetre margin, while the margin at the bottom was closer to five millimetres). This doesn't affect my rating--it doesn't impact my ability to read the book, and it's beyond the authors' control (and may only be my copy).

With all of that said, the approach is interesting. I enjoyed challenging myself and was impressed when I could figure out one of the puzzles (or even a few steps in one of the puzzles). I particularly enjoyed the final puzzle. It felt a bit like a final exam--these are all of the skills we've taught you, so now put them together and show that you can use them. It was a fun sequence. I figured out some of the steps, but didn't get them all. It was nice to have the option to pause and solve at identified points or just to keep reading and see the two speakers reason it out themselves. It was a strong and satisfying ending to the book.

[Michael Trick · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and well written survey of what can be deduced from (primarily) baseball box scores. The authors present a very clear way to think of the sort of retrograde analysis you can do from that data. Great examples, some contrived, some from real box scores. Not a book to be rushed through but one to be thought over.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating at the beginning but became a little too esoteric as it proceeded.