Modern initialism for Black dialect / THU 8-17-23 / Rebuff in Rostov / Covered with bryophytes / Part of the Hollywood monogram J.E.J. / Make out sloppily in the library? / Bistate metro area abbr. / Sargasso Sea spawners / New Edition's debut single ("You look so sweet, you're a special treat")

Effa Louise Manley (née Brooks; March 27, 1897 – April 16, 1981) was an American sports executive. She co-owned the Newark Eagles baseball franchise in the Negro leagues with her husband Abe Manley from 1935 to 1948. Throughout that time, she served as the team's business manager and fulfilled many of her husband's duties as treasurer of the Negro National League. In 2006, she posthumously became the first (and, to date, only) woman inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, chosen by the Special Committee on Negro Leagues for her work as an executive. (wikipedia)

This is remarkably clever. Wacky in an enjoyable way. Puzzling, but in a friendly way. Gentle for a Thursday, but with tons of, let's say, flavor in the fill. Once you pick up the theme—I got it after I filled in my second themer, SERRATIONS—the puzzle gets much easier, as you know now that you are essentially being handed the first few letters of the answer with every clue you read. And yet figuring out that back half was still a lot of fun. I liked mentally scrolling through different synonyms for "food" trying to find something that could make a word with the initial letters I'd been handed. Not terribly hard, but still entertaining. And the fill was really strong, despite there being a lot of short stuff. I'm always prepared for Erik's puzzles to be consciously Black, and today did not disappoint, from the throwback pop of New Edition ("CANDY GIRL"!) to the upper echelons of the Negro Leagues (EFFA MANLEY) to mainstream television (Robin Roberts on "GMA"), from AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) to J.E.J. (i.e. James EARL Jones), there was a wide-ranging Black presence in the grid. My proudest moment, from an "OMG my brain still works!" perspective, was remembering EFFA MANLEY! (EFFA came easily, but then I was in a little trouble ... "MOSLEY! No. MABLEY! No. Oh oh oh, MANLEY!? ... yes!"). 

Around the beginning of the pandemic, I sank heavily into baseball books, and a bio of her (pictured above) was one of the many books I read (and enjoyed). She's probably the least (generally) well known answer in the grid, but she was really important on the business management side of baseball, and it turns out the book I read was just one of many written about her. She's a really important figure (and obviously being the first woman in the Baseball HOF makes her inherently puzzleworthy). I'm looking over all the EFFA MANLEY crosses and ... yeah, they all look fair. I can see how that answer alone might drive the puzzle into difficult territory, but the relatively gettable theme should keep this one on the easy side, overall.

While the theme answers didn't give me much trouble, a lot of the short fill did, though not for very good reason. I just couldn't see through the somewhat vague cluing. RACES (1D: Election night list) and MICS (28D: Row for a musical group) in particular required every cross. So many things listed on election night (stats? states? maps? candidates?), so many potential rows for groups (what kind of group? rows of chairs, rows of music stands? are these bands fighting?). I also had a "How does a paradigm move??" moment (SHIFT), and neither of the "watering holes" were immediately clear to me. I knew that there was a Kansas City, Missouri as well as a Kansas City, Kansas, but I semi-embarrassingly didn't know that St. Louis (STL) had a "metro area" that extended into Illinois (it is Illinois, isn't it?? yes, thank god, at least my brain was able to retain *that* much geography). If it's a "metro area" in three letters and it starts with "S," my first instinct is, oddly, SLC, but of course there's no "Bistate" metro area out there. Just Utah ... and then, I dunno, a bunch of MESAs. Cities are harder to come by out west until you hit CA. My favorite clue, because it led to a genuine "d'oh!" on my part, was 4D: ( and ) (ARCS). I thought the parentheses were doing something to the word "and," like ... is somewhat whispering to me? Encouraging me to go on (with my story)? Is it a word meaning "and"? No, it's just on arc ... and then another arc ... and together the parenthetical-looking dealies are just ARCS. Mathematically so. 

I really like the loopiness of the clue on MOM (6A: Wow, that's upside down!), and I like the coincidence of GEAR appearing over SHIFT appearing over CAR! Hurray for chance juxtapositions. Not sure how I feel about "C'MON" crossing "CAN I COME IN?" Seems like a dupe of "come," even if "come" isn't fully written out in "C'MON." I think I'm gonna let this one off with a warning, but ... I see your shenanigans, so don't let it happen again, mister. Just be glad that "CAN I COME IN?" is such a strong entry. Harder to be mad when I'm dealing with nice fill. I no-looked PYTHONS today (43D: Things with coils that can be dangerous) (just filled it in from a handful of crosses, never looked at the clue), and, even more miraculous (to me), I absolutely stuck the landing with my first guess on that insane direction clue (36D: 157.5 degrees from N). "Uh ... SSE!? ... holy cow, that's right? ha ha ha, amazing." If I'd just slowed down and thought about it, SSE and SSW were really the only possible answers there, but while I was flying through the grid, all I saw was a  non-round number and a direction, and my SSE felt like a shot in the dark. Like, I just threw it up and hoped it would stick. And it did. And I was GLAD (48A: Chuffed). See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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