A new offseason of White Sox puzzlement begins
No, not the offseason puzzlement of why in the world the White Sox made the managerial hire they did, or whether the return of Adam Eaton means the return of Drake LaRoche ... the offseason verbal puzzlement of Cryptosoxery — cryptoquotes with a White Sox angle.
The quote may be from someone associated with the Sox, past or present, or about the Sox in some way.
For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, a cryptoquote is a slice of verbiage, with either a written or oral source, in which there has been a simple letter substitution ... maybe an I for a J or Q for an E, the same substitutions throughout the puzzle.
To solve the quote, you need to find the most common letters — often that will be the one that stands for “e” — or very often used words, like “the,” or letter patterns of common words, such as ABCCAD being a possible encryption of LITTLE.
Got it? Good. We’re going to start with an easy one, it being Christmas and all, with encryption courtesy of the magic machine at wordles.com.
P’S QAJ OAPQO JA SFQFOY FOFPQ. P’S OAPQO JA VAIR EAI F JYFS HASYKFL. NBJ PJ VAQ’J NY SFQFOPQO. — JAQL UF IBHHF
As a further Christmas gift hint, this is a quote almost all White Sox fans wish were true, but turned out not to be. And the speaker, listed after the dash, is one who should come rapidly to mind, and which will give you a whole bunch of letters to help with the solution.
The answer, and a new Cryptosoxery, will be coming next week.
