Wide-reaching green light / WED 2-19-25 / Dewy-eyed heroine / Synergy-seeking move / Small British hunting dog / End-of-level enemies in video games / Onetime place to shop while high? / Destination of a walk / Something good for an angler, bad for a dog trainer / French pointillism pioneer / Biological bags / Programming conditionals

Theme answers:

• BLOCKBUSTER (17A: Film megahit)
• BLANKET APPROVAL (29A: Wide-reaching green light)
• BORDER TERRIER (34A: Small British hunting dog)
• BATTING PRACTICE (44A: Slugger's pregame warm-up)

Word of the Day: Robinson CANÓ (25D: Baseballer Robinson ___) —

Robinson José Canó Mercedes (Spanish pronunciation: [ka'no]; born October 22, 1982) is a Dominican-American professional baseball second baseman for the Diablos Rojos del México of the Mexican League; he also captains the Estrellas Orientales of the Dominican Professional Baseball League. He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, New York Mets, San Diego Padres, and Atlanta Braves.

A native of San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic, Canó signed with the Yankees organization as an amateur free agent in 2001. He played for the Yankees from 2005 to 2013, also winning the 2009 World Series over the Philadelphia Phillies. In December 2013, Canó signed a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Mariners and he played for them from 2014 to 2018, when he was traded to the Mets. Canó recorded 1,695 hits in the 2010s, the most of any major league player during that decade. He is an eight-time MLB All-Star, a five-time Silver Slugger Award winner, and a two-time Gold Glove Award winner. Canó is also the 2017 All-Star Game MVP and the 2011 Home Run Derby winner.

Canó has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs twice. In 2018, Canó was suspended from MLB for 80 games for violating the league's joint drug agreement by using furosemide. Canó was also suspended for the entire 2021 season after testing positive for stanozolol. (wikipedia)

[6D: French pointillism pioneer]

The theme is OK, I guess, but solving this was something less than a joy because the fill was wall-to-wall blah—and frequently downright bad. I actually stopped in disbelief at the godawfulness that is TSK-TSKED. I mean, TSKED is bad enough—you see it from time to time in the grid because it's five letters and it's got an odd letter combination—but TSKED is short gunk and you can ignore it pretty easily, especially if the rest of the puzzle is OK. But TSKTSKED?! (5D: Orally admonished). Aside from something that's said by precisely no one, it's a complete waste of a longer answer. It's crosswordese on steroids (speaking of steroids ... see Robinson CANÓ, above!). Here's me catching my breath and bracing for the worst, after starting superfast and reasonably optimistic:

I was half hoping that TSKTSKED was somehow wrong, but that "K" slid in so nicely at the end of "BLOCK" that I knew, sadly, it was right. You then get not one but two biting dog clues—one of which was totally unnecessary. SIC 'EM, ugh, more crosswordese, but what else are you gonna do but clue that with reference to dogs? But BITE ... I get that you're trying to be clever, but leave dogs out of your violent scenarios (18D: Something good for an angler, bad for a dog trainer). No biting dogs if you don't absolutely need biting dogs. And certainly not *two* biting dogs. Doggos are good. Lawful Good. Treat them that way. It's humans who are EVIL (39D: "Most of the ___ in this world is done by people with good intentions": T.S. Eliot) (T.S. Eliot ... not sure I agree with your math, there, T.S. Look around, T.S.).

IVANIV and SEAEEL are a grim pair of 6s to put in one corner, in a grid that needs all the solid and interesting fill it can get. ABA EMO ERN RICA ASONE TIETO ÉTÉ SIA ... this was very easy and very unfun. The theme answers were interesting as standalone answers, but they were the only thing that was interesting. This puzzle really really needed that revealer to land, and ... shrug. I guess those are, in fact, quilting terms. You piece together quilts out of BLOCKs, you use quilts as BLANKETs (this one seems kinda weak), you sew BORDERs onto quilts, and you fill them with BATTING. All quilts, all "B" ("Bee")s. Adequate revealer, reasonable theme, but it can't make up for the truly listless grid today. The solving experience was less than enjoyable, the grid definitely subPAR (so annoying that "subpar" means "below average" but if you shoot below PAR in golf, that's above average—truly one of the stupidest mutations in the English language).

No real resistance today. This should've been yesterday's puzzle. And I wish it had been more like yesterday, at least in terms of inventiveness and overall personality. I'll take "flashy but with three names I've never heard of" over "zzzzzzzzzzz" any day. Can't believe I didn't like a puzzle with this much baseball content (three answers!) and this much dog content (three answers!). Started quick by getting FIRST easily (the first of the baseball clues) (1A: Destination of a walk), and then all the Downs crossing first, the last of which was ... well, we already covered the TSKTSKED debacle, no need to revisit. After that, the only hesitations I had were, which IVAN is it (II or IV?), and then SPELLING and even KNITTING before QUILTING, strangely ("strangely" because my mother's side of the family were big quilters and there are quilts on her walls, quilts in our bedroom, in our daughter's old bedroom, etc.). SEWING BEE also came to mind, but obviously it didn't fit *and* "sewing" was in the clue, so that was out. Still, it's not like any of this cost me much time, as no other answer in the grid held me up (slight hesitation at BOSSES, maybe, but I've heard the term "boss level" so much that even that one just rolled over) (44D: End-of-level enemies in video games).

[Mom's house]

Bullet points:

• 21A: Dewy-eyed heroine (INGENUE) — I like this term. It's weirdly dated and kinda ... infantilizing? Sexist? But it's a term that reminds me of old Hollywood, which is where I like to spend a lot of my time (calming my brain in order to remain functional in The Real World, whatever that is). 

• 54A: Onetime place to shop while high? (SKYMALL) — huh, SKYMALL is bygone? I missed that. Maybe because I never made an in-air purchase in my life (I don't even buy the food you can eat right then and there unless I'm truly desperate). Anyway, not getting on any plane for another six months, thank god ... although why do I expect the air traffic control situation to be any better by then? MACA! (Make Airplanes Crash Again! It's a more honest slogan)
• 32A: Birchbark, e.g. (CANOE) — last night, I solved a variety puzzle from Joon Pahk's "Outside the Box" puzzles (highly recommended), and it had this exact clue / answer pairing. The puzzle was trickier than a straight crossword, but solving it involved knowing that one thing meant the other thing, so it was deja-vuish to see this clue/answer today. I like the CANÓ / CANOE crossing for ... well, if you were alive in the '80s, maybe you know:

• 4D: Biological bags (SACS) — if ever a clue made me go "ew," this one did
• 45D: World capital said to have been founded by King Midas (ANKARA) — ooh, did not know that. I wanted this to have something to do with Crete ... but that's Minos, not Midas.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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