# The Team Roster Mystery

## Game Day

When the managers of the Tampa Times and St. Pete Sun met for their annual company baseball game, everyone decided by unanimous vote that they wanted a different method of choosing which team bats first. Flipping a coin was just plain boring.

They came up with a much more fun way to decide. The players will line up and count-off alphabetically, and the first player who was counted with the initial letter of his first name would choose whether his team would bat first or not.

The players lined up and the captain of the Tampa Times team began.

To everyone's suprise, the counting went steadily on:

...a, b, c, ...x, y, z, a, b, ...x, y, z, a, b...


again and again, and nobody called out their own initial. After at least dozen rounds through the alphabet, they decided to get on with things, and just flip a coin after-all.

## The Toss

The coin was flipped and landed in the grass. Then suddenly, it began to storm! The game was postponed until next year. The coin was never recovered or looked at and the make-up of each team remained shrouded in mystery.

Being a game full of newspaper reporters, it was only a matter of time before the list of the eighteen player names was leaked.

so...

## Who Plays For Which Team?

• What is the order in which players are counted? TT1, SPS1, TT2 or TT1, TT2, TT3? Edit: Also, are the 18 given names their first names for the selection, or no? – Braegh Apr 12 at 22:24
• Partway through solving this, and unless I'm missing something, it'll be impossible to differentiate between players with the same initial: I can't tell which player is Morton and which is Miller or Myers. Also, I second Braegh's question. – Exal Apr 12 at 22:25
• @Braegh, yes first name, as stated in the puzzle text. Thank you for looking. – John S. Apr 12 at 23:39

As written in the comments, we are missi g a key informations : how are the players counted?

This answers suppose a player from Tampa is counted, then a player from St-Petes.

The players from Tampa are

Babcock, Brown, Flynn, Jenkins, Lucas, RandalThor, Timmons, Taylor, Peters. All those who have a letter corresponding to an even number.

The players from St-Petes are

Adams, Carver, Gerson, Miller, Myers, Morton, Smith, Sawyer and Young. All those who have a letter corresponding to an odd number.

• Aha, I was missing something--the fact he wasn't asking for the lineup in-order, just who was on which team. – Exal Apr 12 at 23:05
• @Alain - This was , in my opinion, a very difficult puzzle, as can be seen by: #1 The down votes, LOL , and #2 The deceiving appearance of missing information. BUt, as you see, it is solvable! Nice work. – John S. Apr 12 at 23:38
• @Exal , yep - not line-up order, just which team. Did you get it yet? – John S. Apr 12 at 23:40