ROUND 3 META: SPORTS

by Ken Stern, Jonathan Sheffi, and Greg Brume

Starring as your demons: Ken Stern and Zack Butler

Final activity: Bring two players to HQ and throw a game

Each puzzle in round 3 produces a nine-letter word. In the video, the sportscaster describes nine baseball plays involving three relays among players on particular Major League Baseball roster from the 2006 season. In standard baseball scoring, the players at each of these positions is assigned a number from 1 to 9:

1: Pitcher
2: Catcher
3: First Baseman
4: Second Baseman
5: Third Baseman
6: Shortstop
7: Left Fielder
8: Center Fielder
9: Right Fielder

So the plays are:

San Diego Padres: Josh Barfield (4) to Mark Bellhorn (5) to Khalil Greene (6)
Houston Astros: Craig Biggio (4) to Morgan Ensberg (5) to Adam Everett (6)
Oakland A's: Bobby Crosby (6) to Nick Swisher (7) to Eric Chavez (5)
New York Mets: Tom Glavine (1) to Carlos Delgado (3) to David Wright (5)
Los Angeles Dodgers: Russell Martin (2) to Nomar Garciaparra (3) to Jeff Kent (4)
Kansas City Royals: Mark Grudzielanek (4) to Doug Mientkiewicz (3) to Grudzielanek (4)
New York Yankees: Jorge Posada (2) to Robinson Cano (4) to Jason Giambi (3)
Boston Red Sox: Curt Schilling (1) to Jason Varitek (2) to Kevin Youkilis (3)
Philadelphia Phillies: Abraham Nunez (5) to Chase Utley (4) to Aaron Rowand (8)

Using the player positions in order in each play, index into the alphabetically ordered nine-letter answer three times each to spell out a trigram:

4-5-6:CAMBRIDGE(BRI)
4-5-6:DOINGTIME(NGT)
6-7-5:GROUPWORK(WOP)
1-3-5:LEAPYEARS(LAY)
2-3-4:PERSONIFY(ERS)
4-3-4:QUOTIDIAN(TOT)
2-4-3:SHORTSTOP(HRO)
1-2-3:WAGTHEDOG(WAG)
5-4-8:ZENMASTER(AME)

This spells BRING TWO PLAYERS TO THROW A GAME. Bringing two players to HQ to simulate throwing a game gets you the certificate.

Broken tag fixed in 2010 by the archivists of Beginner's Luck