Roscoe Sets the Stage

"Remember the time I got shipwrecked in the South Pacific with my pal named Monday?" Roscoe began. Monday, it should be noted, was Roscoe's answer to Robinson Crusoe's Fridayhis traveling companion and overall helper. Roscoe and Monday had spent many a night under the stars and, if two guys had to be marooned, those two had a chance of surviving together without killing each other.

"Yeah," I replied. "You guys were really lucky; as I recall, you were the only survivors. The island was tropical; there was plenty of food, and you had shelter from the elements. All you had to do was wait to be rescued."

"Well," snapped back Roscoe, "all we could do was wait. There was no way we could accelerate anything. Our biggest problem was boredom; there were no books in the flotsam and jetsam, and we desperately needed a way to pass the time without going bonkers."

It turns out that in going through their salvage inventory, Roscoe and Monday discovered a mint set of baseball cards. After awhile, Monday, an inveterate and incurable baseball fanatic, suggested they use the statistics on the baseball cards to construct two teams so that they could conduct some "fantasy" baseball games to pass the time. Fortunately, they had an ample supply of pencils and paper. Roscoe had even rescued his pocket slide rule.

"As soon as Monday came up with the idea," said Roscoe, "I was keen on it. It would give us something to do, and it would be a harmless form of competition. So I set about figuring out how to create the game.

"And that is how the thorny problem came about."