Physician Franz who coined term animal magnetism / SUN 3-31-19 / Roc band with 1994 4x platinum album Downward Spiral for short

Constructor: Andrew J. Ries

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (9:55)



THEME:"Take One For The Team" — themers contain the names of Major League Baseball teams + 1 extra letter. The the extra letters end up spelling (when taken in order from top themer to bottom themer) SACRIFICE, which you then enter at 76-Down, which is clued only [See note]. Get it, because "SACRIFICE" is a baseball play and you have to metaphorically "SACRIFICE" a letter to get the actual baseball team name ... yeah, you get it ...

Theme answers:

• ASPIRATES (25A: Pronounces breathily)
• MEAT SAUCE (27A: Hearty pasta topping)
• CASTRO STREET (39A: Historic San Francsico thoroughfare)
• SCRUB SUITS (44A: Outfits in the operating room)
• TELEVANGELISM (66A: Some Sunday broadcasting)
• FRED SAVAGE (84A: "The Wonder Years" star)
• PAID RESPECTS (90A: Visited out of deference (to))
• GRAYSCALE (105A: Colorless mode at a copy shop)
• PORTWINES (107A: Strong servings with dessert)

Word of the Day: Jacky ROSEN (18D: Nevada senator Jacky) —

Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen (née Spektor; August 2, 1957) is an American politician serving as the juniorU.S. Senator from Nevada. Prior to serving in the Senate, Rosen served one term as the U.S. Representative for Nevada's 3rd congressional district. She was elected to the United States Senatein the 2018 election, defeating Republican incumbent Dean Heller.^[1] She is the only freshman in the U.S. House of Representatives who won a seat in the U.S. Senate during the 2018 midterm electionsand the only challenger to defeat a Republican incumbent Senator in the 2018 cycle. (wikipedia)

I'm at the peak of this stupid head cold, so I don't know how much gas I've got in the tank this evening. Let's see. So I've been doing two things a lot for the past 48 Hours (while hydrating, resting, and moaning like a poor baby): solving crosswords and watching baseball. These are two of my favorite things, and I've just been stuffing myself with both. I'm a Tigers fan, so it's largely been a miserable experience. We didn't score at all in Game 1 until Christian Stewart crushed a two-run homer in the 10th to win it. Great. But then we didn't score at all the next game. Or The Next Game. That's 28 total innings worth of plate appearances so far this year, and a grand total of two (2) runs, both of which came in a single inning, on a single swing of the bat. I'm not saying it's going to be a long season. I'm saying it's not a season at all, but some anteroom in hell, and it will never, ever end, and I'm condemned to watch it for eternity with my eyelids propper open. Or so it has felt like. So, solving this puzzle ... didn't feel as bad as watching this so-called "baseball" over the past few days, but it did not feel good. It just doesn't know what it wants to do, what it wants to be when it grows up. It kinda wishes it were a true metapuzzle, where solvers would be given a hint to the final answer and then have to figure it out themselves based on the evidence in the grid. But ... it's not that, because the actual answer is In The Grid (why!?!?!), and while it's unclued, it's not exactly hiding. It was super-easy to uncover SACRIFICE without ever once looking at the Note or trying to figure out what was going on with the theme. Who has the time. I was done in under 10 without even trying to grok the theme. It's such an awkward execution of an idea. No thought seems to have been given to how satisfying this thing will be from the solver's perspective. Puzzle-makers just got all lost in the gimmick, I guess. The execution is lousy. I didn't even have to look at the note to get the theme. The baseball names are pretty obvious (well, at least to me, though admittedly I've been soaking in baseball, so maybe it wasn't so obvious to others). From my solving perspective, this thing was a giant themeless with an unclued answer. Circled squares, unclued answer, none of it did anything for me. Swing and a miss.


The fill didn't exactly sizzle either. ARB, ONLAY (I only know INLAY), ELHI ESO and my all-time non-favorite answer, ALIENEE. Theme density => highly segmented grid (to keep the fill cleanish) => mostly short and dull stuff. Longer stuff doesn't exactly shine either. UTAHNS PERI ADLAI UTNE CHE ISEE. WAF!?!? I liked CASTRO STREET as an answer. GRAYSCALE is Ok too. SCRUB SUITS is redundant. FRED SAVAGE is a cool throwback. Or a throwback, anyway. PORT WINES is redundant. I had BLOB before GLOB (105D: Shapeless mass), and SPY NOVEL before SPY STORY, which is more accurate, but wrong today, I guess (68D: John le Carré specialty). I think I'm gonna go now. I did a really beautiful 17x17 puzzle by Paolo Pasco today (from the American Values Club Crossword), and I'm just gonna count that as my Sunday solving experience. It was everything I wish NYT Sundays could be. Simple and original and delightful.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. almost forgot—loved "MAUDE"; more Bea Arthur, please (1A: Top 10-rated sitcom each season from 1972 to 1976)

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