MONDAY PUZZLE — Crosswords change with the times. Decades pass; one set of cultural references gives way to another. Some things, however, remain constant. There will always be three-letter names like Eli, Ora, Ari, Uma and Yma. The Oreo is likely to remain the New York Times Crossword’s favorite cookie.
I can’t predict whether the subject of today’s crossword, constructed by Helen Chen, will remain as ubiquitous in future Times puzzles as it is now. The subject is a sport whose jargon may be familiar or totally foreign, depending on your hobbies and interests. What I can say is that this puzzle stands on its own without a theme, and is as accessible as any other Monday grid.
Today’s Theme
I’m no sports polyglot, myself, but I recognized baseball slang in “tater,” from 27A’s TATER TOTS — [Alternative to French fries] — as a term for a home run.
The split revealer entry, at 38A and 41A, describes a [ball hit out of the park by the very first batter for either side … or a hint to the starts of 18-, 27-, 46- and 60-Across], which is a LEADOFF HOME RUN. In other words, the starts of each of the cited entries are various slang terms for a home run.
18A’s [Complete shocker] is a BOMBSHELL — “bomb” being an occasional synonym for a home run. The [Detonation region] at 46A is a BLAST ZONE. “Blast” is another word for a home run. And at 60A, the “jack” of JACKFRUIT, [Tropical tree whose product is sometimes used as a meat substitute], is baseballese for hitting it out of the park.
Tricky Clues
17A. While we’re learning ballpark slang, here’s a term for a [Solid baseball hit]: LINER.
35A. Sometimes a constructor just needs to fit letters into the grid. How else would you clue a strange cluster of letters like URE, if not as a [Suffix with fail or forfeit]? (It has also been clued as [Yorkshire river] and as the last name of Mary Ure, a British actress who was big in the 1960s.)
4D. Many elements of crossword clues and entries need to match one another — tense, part of speech and language, to name a few — but there’s no rule about matching a number of words. Thus, a single-word clue like [Antsy] can solve to a synonymous two-word phrase, ON EDGE.
8D. These weren’t the [Forum overseers] of ancient Rome. This clue refers to online forums, whose overseers are ADMINS.
19D. Colloquial clues indicate equally colloquial entries. You might casually refer to a sweltering day as a [Scorcher] or a HOT ONE.
34D. I solved [Dugout, e.g.] using my crossings and had no idea what to make of CANOE. A dugout, I’ve since learned, is a variety of canoe made out of a hollowed (dug) out tree using systematic burning techniques.
61D. And if, like me, your sports expertise ends at baseball, you might have needed crossing entries to figure out that [N.F.L. three-pointers: Abbr.] are F.G.’S, as in field goals.
Improve Your Crossword Solving
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