Sleight of hand and Mike Lamb.

You and two friends stay at a hotel room and it costs $30. You each pay $10.

The hotel manager offers a refund of $5.

Since the bellhop doesn't want to pay you back in cents, he give everybody back $1: $1 for you and $1 for each of your friends. A total of $3 refunded, leaving the bellhop with a $2 "tip."

Therefore, you've each paid $9 for the hotel room, right?

$9 x 3 = $27 + $2 tip = $29.

What happened to the other dollar?


Check out this awful magic trick.

The card you picked will always disappear. It's amazing. Yawn.


You approach a fork in the road. Two sisters guard the road. One always tells the truth, one always tells a lie. You can only ask one question. What question do you ask to determine the correct path to take?

You ask, "How would your sister answer if I asked her which path to take?"

Then, you take the other path.

Think about that one and you'll get it.


Somehow, in my mind, all this trick logic relates to the ARod discussion. The unprovable idea the Yankees would be better off without ARod.

It wasn't the absence of ARod that made the '96 - '00 Yankee teams successful. It was the presence of Wells, Pettitte, Cone, El Duque, Clemens, Mariano, Jeter, Bernie, O'Neill, Posada, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Even if Scott Brosius (and Wade Boggs and Charlie Hayes) possessed some sort of magical team-first alchemy that propelled the Yankees to Championships, this is a moot point: Scott Brosius retired following the 2001 season.

When the Yankees acquired ARod, their third baseman was (supposedly) Mike Lamb.

The Yankees may have acquired a different 3b or they may have attempted to move Soriano to 3b when Cano came up ... just speculation, of course.

The only relevant discussion is whether ARod is better or worse than the alternatives.


Does anybody really think the Yankees would have won the World Series if they had kept Alfonso Soriano and Mike Lamb? Can anybody guarantee the Yankees would have won the World Series if they had kept Alfonso Soriano and Mike Lamb? Without prime time contributions from Cone, Pettitte, Clemens, Wells, and El Duque?

If you really believe that, then I've got some credit default swaps I'd like to sell you.