I had never heard about the ball-trick before, also not my friends, but this can be coincidence, of course. Maybe I am wrong with that. I´d like to know how many here in the forum knew about that before TRF, if it´s a majority it could be a red herring of course, if not, I doubt about the quality of a red herring which nobody will realize .
But even if it´s absolutely well-known, it must not necessarily be a red herring. I don´t think that Sherlock pressed the ball under the armpit during the fall, of course not. Between the last time we see the ball and the fall has a certain time passed, whichever (John sleeps e.g.). Sherlock could have even left the room in between. The ball could be in a pocket of his coat or somebody involved down at the ground had one. Or - it´s a red herring, and yes, I also want good explanations .

Last edited by anjaH_alias (April 8, 2013 12:20 pm)

Maybe it´s a German lack of consciousness ? Thanks....

Funny, the ball trick had been one of the first things I've across after watching the episode. That and a youtube video demonstrating  why the truck is too far away.

Be wrote:

Be wrote:

Something I'm not absolutely sure of, but it is probably something Sherlock did to prepare for the fall:
1. somebody poured a great amount of blood on the ground;
2. but we see in Sherlock's face that the blood trail is nicely done to convince a doctor that the skull is fractured. You can see that blood comes out of the left ear and the nose. It runs vertical when Sherlock is positioned on his right side.

This second application must be done when Sherlock is already on the pavement. It can not be done by just pouring everything from above. Hypothesis: Sherlock did it himself in the few seconds before people approached him. How? Sherlock must have kept the blood in a small container. Something handy and someting which would allow him to be very precice with the amount of blood. And if it is real blood (his own?) it mustn't coagulate. Therfore it must be stired and moved to prevent coagulation.
Conveniently we see Sherlock moving someting excessively. What if it is not a rubber ball but a manual rubber pipetting aid. He is in the laboratory where there are all kind of devices. We can find this kind of balls in chemical laboratories. And they look like rubber balls. You use it to apply liquid onto slices. We see Sherlock using pipettes througout the series. Sometimes they are small and transparent and sometimes they are big. Depends on the amount of liquid you want to use. We see Molly with another kind of pipette in TRF. In The casebook you can find it when you look at the first picture with Sherlock and John in 221 b next to John on a small table. There it is a small white ball in a glass container.

Might be something, might be just my imgagination. But I think it fits with Sherlock's measuring the coagulation of saliva, the bouncing ball and pipetting.
What do you think?

 
I changed my mind about the bouncing ball since I last wrote the sentences above.
At first I thought that Sherlock would use laboratory equipment and the ball must be something that can be found there.
I still can't see Sherlock shopping at ToysRUs after talking to Molly at St.Barts.
Right now I think the ball is just a ball. But the origin of it is the question. Where does it come from? There has to be an explanation. It's not just: Sherlock has suddenly found a ball somewhere.

My answer is: He "acquired" it during the kidnapping investigation. He just took it away under the eyes of Lestrade, Donovan and John and under our eyes as well from the boy's bedroom. Claudette plays Lacrosse but there is no ball in her trunk. Max plays crickett and there seems to be no ball either.

Sherlock picked the ball up from the boy's bed with his left hand while we are looking at the bottle with oil in his right hand. A magician's trick to draw the attention to something in one hand and do something with the other one.
The thieving magpie-theme is presented in connection with Moriarty but it can be applied to Sherlock as well.

 

Why would Sherlock want the ball in the first place? And why that particular ball? 
 

Be wrote:

It is a lacrosse ball because you can use it to help you release body tension, help your body stay relaxed when in pain.

That exactly always was for me the possible red herring having to do with the ball - Sherlock who tries to stay relaxed in an extreme situation (as all American heroes do with a chewing gum in their mouth in situations of need ). That´s what I saw in that scene first. To cover the possible real meaning of the ball - the armpit-trick.
Btw and again: Sherlock in his situation doesn´t need to press the ball under his armpit during the fall. It could be in a coat pocket or just in the hands of one of his helpers on the ground.

Last edited by anjaH_alias (April 15, 2013 12:16 pm)

If it is a squash ball it can be a hollow body. In a squash ball there is always some fluid. Maybe that saved my blood-theory? Untill further notice.

Do you know the expression "Carrying the idiot ball"? The idiot ball is a character in a plot who is often acting out of character. It's almost as if  the character is willfully stupid. The holder of the idiot ball asks the dump questions to allow a certain amount of exposition to occur. I found that on a site TVtropes.org.

 

Last edited by Be (April 16, 2013 10:54 am)

Think Airbags . like in a car .
The photo of the homelessy like man on the bench below b4 the fall has 3 bags .
After he is stood right by the body , and no sign of any bags ?

Was it a 3 large airbags solution ?

After all John couldnt of seen Sherlock land , and further once the bags had exploded ~ almost nothing left but dust and a few empty bags tht would go nicely into a coat pocket .

Stuntmen fall onto air bag type landings alllll the time .  
A little fake blood and a Dazed @ Confused doctor @ Voila.

Done in seconds with almost no remaining evidance. .

Last edited by lil (June 21, 2013 4:17 am)

Be wrote:

Hi tobe,
just read you initial post and I see that you have been at the location.

One thing I'd like to ask because of the odd position of the cab when John gets out:

I presume that the cab has to stop where it stops for John to get out because it is not allowed to stop in front of the entrance or stop somewhere nearer to the entrance. The two yellow lines on the pavement begin where the cab stops. Or am I mistaken? I have never been there myself.

 

In spite of the two yellow lines - why shouldn't it be possible for a cab to drop a passenger off a little closer to the entrance as long as the bus service in this area isn't affected?

tobeornot221b wrote:

Be wrote:

Hi tobe,
just read you initial post and I see that you have been at the location.

One thing I'd like to ask because of the odd position of the cab when John gets out:

I presume that the cab has to stop where it stops for John to get out because it is not allowed to stop in front of the entrance or stop somewhere nearer to the entrance. The two yellow lines on the pavement begin where the cab stops. Or am I mistaken? I have never been there myself.

 

In spite of the two yellow lines - why shouldn't it be possible for a cab to drop a passenger off a little closer to the entrance as long as the bus service in this area isn't affected?

 
It's in the (traffic) rules. The cabbie would observe the rules. In front of the hospital there is a one-way street. The City of Westmister (whoever is responsible for the parking rules in London) doesn't want people to stop or park near the hospital and the emergency station. Except for the marked parking places/ controlled parking zones. I suppose one yellow line is "no parking" and two yellow lines means "no stopping". Even the cabbie has to observe that, IMO.
 

lil wrote:

sherlockian111 wrote:

lil wrote:

Think Airbags . like in a car .
The photo of the homelessy like man on the bench below b4 the fall has 3 bags .
After he is stood right by the body , and no sign of any bags ?

Was it a 3 large airbags solution ?

After all John couldnt of seen Sherlock land , and further once the bags had exploded ~ almost nothing left but dust and a few empty bags tht would go nicely into a coat pocket .

Stuntmen fall onto air bag type landings alllll the time .  
A little fake blood and a Dazed @ Confused doctor @ Voila.

Done in seconds with almost no remaining evidance. .

I quite like your theory, but the one problem I have with it is, how did Sherlock know that Moriarty would kill himself? How did Sherlock know that Moriarty wouldn't have anybody else watching? Also, wouldn't John's sniper have seen those airbags? 
Also, this is quite a minor detail, but the creators of Sherlock said there were clues pointing towards the solution, and, as far as I can tell, there aren't any clues pointing towards your theory. 
 

Hmmm , The landing site was almost always obscurred , the bus , the yellow lorry , the smaller building . Planned that way likely.
The sniper on John was targeting John and probably only watching SH periphically. .
After all " It's just a  magic trick " ~ people see what they expect to see when they've been set up to see what you want them to see.
Sherlock did ask M to stand back,,,,but I think SH was toying with him .
Either Moriarty made a boastfull mistake at the last moment about the recall code , (sir boastalot ha ) and SH took advantage of that  , or more probably SH knew that he only had to shake hands with Moriarty for him to be shot somehow , like the two life saving assasins were ?
( "I've got you" )  ( " Shake your hand in hell " )

As for clues hmmm IOU using the Bach keycode ( French syle , fish/poisson) spells out BAG , but I don't think M would give Sherlock clues on how to fake his own death.
So maybe that is a ref @ BAG puzzles ,traditional challanges of logic.
Either way I think the Bach deathbed story is the clue , M is on his deathbed , SH is unfinished business and the final problem ( for Moriarty anyway) is coercing Sherlock into dieing with him .
( Dieing together , can't live with each other , can't live without ), which has been re~occuring theme since TGG.  I think SH knew this, and expected it to be a double suicide/homicide somehow.

Coincidentally this an almost exact reversall of ACD's cannon. 
( I have expanded on this is the Reichbach my theories thread post.) 

/phew . Probably Wrong! but  fun . Just my thoughts ,TY for yours .
XoX 
 

Your theory makes sense, unlike some of the other theories out there I don't know, there are a few theories which could work, but I'm not sure about. Anyway, I don't really have a theory; I did come up with the theory that the killers who tried to save Sherlock's life somehow saved him from going splat on the pavement, but that theory is not likely. I have accepted the fact that I don't think I will guess the correct theory. So yeah