Constructor: David J. Kahn
Relative difficulty: Medium, maybe a little easier (time normal, but grid was oversized, so ...)
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THEME: GRAND SLAM HOMERUN (62A: What will cause a walk-off win in the situation described by the answers to the starred clues) — answers to the starred clues are baseball phrases each of which has been clued super-wackily:
Theme answers:
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I love baseball crosswords. I have made several myself. And the theme idea here is clever (as wacky themes go), but the theme feels botched—or at least the revealer does. Yes, a GRAND SLAM HOME RUN will cause a walk-off home run in the "situation described" by the themers, but two of the theme answers have absolutely nothing to do with with a walk-off GRAND SLAM HOME RUN. There could be zero men out, one man out, or TWO MEN OUT—absolutely doesn't matter. And the count? The bleeping count? That has even less relevance to the revealer. You can hit a walk-off grand slam with any number of outs, from any count. All the other theme answers are necessary* preconditions of the walk-off GRAND SLAM HOME RUN. The other two have been included, but they are just window dressing. No direct relationship. Cool to have extra baseball content, not at all cool to try to make the number of outs or the count relevant to the walk-off GRAND SLAM HOME RUN. It's just not baseball (which is a phrase I just invented that means roughly what "it's just not cricket" is supposed to mean ... I think; I know very little about cricket or idioms derived therefrom). I guess this is supposed to be an nth-degree situation, maximum suspense and all that, but ... I don't know, once you get down the ball/strike count, you've lost the thread a little. I realize that I am overthinking this, but that's kind of what I do. Also, I'm on spring break and the last few days have been, almost literally, half baseball and half crosswords, so I'm awash in the details right now.
I actually don't mind the turning of basic baseball phrases into punny answers to wacky clues. The theme clues are actually pretty clever. I do have a Go Big Or Go Home policy toward wackiness, and this puzzle certainly swings for the wacky fences. I generally enjoyed the bonus baseball content, but NY MET is not among my favorite answers. "He's an NY MET!" Yeah, no, not a thing you'd say or write, especially in the singular like that. Plural BAHS for NY MET! Baseball bats are typically made from ASH, so I have nooooo idea why that answer wasn't roped into the baseballiness of this puzzle, especially when you stretched wildly to get Yogi Berra into the clue for TEN. But you do have the great LOU Brock and Nolan RYAN, and the STL Cardinals (a legit abbr.). I have never in my life heard of a COTTER, and the connection between blackboards and CAFES was not immediately apparent to me (34D: Places that may have blackboards), so even at -AFES / -OTTER I had no idea what was happening until I started to run the alphabet. Which spelling of 1D: Food cart offering did you go with at first today? I just wrote in K-B-B and let the crosses do the rest because I've given up on trying to guess what version the crossword's going to go with on any given day.
Lastly, GRAND SLAM HOME RUN just sounds redundant and awful to me. A grand slam is, by definition a home run. There are no grand slam doubles, e.g. But I can kind of hear Vin Scully saying GRAND SLAM HOME RUN in my head, so it's definitely a phrase that gets used. Ha, look, I was right:
Well if Vin said it, then I take it all back. It's fine.
*OK, not strictly "necessary." I should probably also have said that a team needn't be DOWN BY THREE for a walk-off GRAND SLAM HOME RUN to happen. I mean, you could hit a walk-off grand slam with the score tied. Also it could come in the bottom of any inning numbered 9 or higher. But at least with DOWN BY THREE, you have a paradigmatic, minimum-necessary (i.e. win-by-one) situation, and with BOTTOM OF THE NINTH, well, the 9th *is* the end of regulation, so it also feels solidly related to the theme; whereas, to reiterate, the number of outs and the ball/strike count seem totally irrelevant.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium, maybe a little easier (time normal, but grid was oversized, so ...)
Theme answers:
- BOTTOM OF THE NINTH (17A: *Bass part in Beethoven's "Choral" Symphony?)
- BASES LOADED (22A: *Result of a lot of drinking in the army?)
- TWO MEN OUT (37A: *A couple of prisoners after an escape from Leavenworth?)
- FULL COUNT (43A: *Dracula, after stuffing himself?)
- DOWN BY THREE (51A: *Plan for a midafternoon nap?)
alsonounnoun: cotter
noun: cotter (in Scotland and Ireland) a farm laborer or tenant occupying a cottage in return for labor. (google)
• • •
[warning: probably NSFW language]
I actually don't mind the turning of basic baseball phrases into punny answers to wacky clues. The theme clues are actually pretty clever. I do have a Go Big Or Go Home policy toward wackiness, and this puzzle certainly swings for the wacky fences. I generally enjoyed the bonus baseball content, but NY MET is not among my favorite answers. "He's an NY MET!" Yeah, no, not a thing you'd say or write, especially in the singular like that. Plural BAHS for NY MET! Baseball bats are typically made from ASH, so I have nooooo idea why that answer wasn't roped into the baseballiness of this puzzle, especially when you stretched wildly to get Yogi Berra into the clue for TEN. But you do have the great LOU Brock and Nolan RYAN, and the STL Cardinals (a legit abbr.). I have never in my life heard of a COTTER, and the connection between blackboards and CAFES was not immediately apparent to me (34D: Places that may have blackboards), so even at -AFES / -OTTER I had no idea what was happening until I started to run the alphabet. Which spelling of 1D: Food cart offering did you go with at first today? I just wrote in K-B-B and let the crosses do the rest because I've given up on trying to guess what version the crossword's going to go with on any given day.
Lastly, GRAND SLAM HOME RUN just sounds redundant and awful to me. A grand slam is, by definition a home run. There are no grand slam doubles, e.g. But I can kind of hear Vin Scully saying GRAND SLAM HOME RUN in my head, so it's definitely a phrase that gets used. Ha, look, I was right:
Well if Vin said it, then I take it all back. It's fine.
*OK, not strictly "necessary." I should probably also have said that a team needn't be DOWN BY THREE for a walk-off GRAND SLAM HOME RUN to happen. I mean, you could hit a walk-off grand slam with the score tied. Also it could come in the bottom of any inning numbered 9 or higher. But at least with DOWN BY THREE, you have a paradigmatic, minimum-necessary (i.e. win-by-one) situation, and with BOTTOM OF THE NINTH, well, the 9th *is* the end of regulation, so it also feels solidly related to the theme; whereas, to reiterate, the number of outs and the ball/strike count seem totally irrelevant.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]