New York Times, Thursday, April 5, 2018

I've written two books of baseball-themed puzzles and love the idea of cluing baseball jargon in a nonbaseball way. This puzzle actually relates five answers to a situation you might hear described by a baseball announcer, with the appropriate payoff at the end. The puzzle needed to be a little wider to accommodate the longest answers and I tried to make the answers sound unforced. Looking forward to the 2018 season!

I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I do enjoy the lingo. Some of David's takes on common baseball phrases amused me. And I liked his effort to tie them together into a story. What better way to end the puzzle than a GRAND SLAM HOME RUN?

I did wonder about TWO MEN OUT and DOWN BY THREE. The former — don't most announcers say "two away" or "two out"? It's been a while since I've been to a game, but TWO MEN OUT sounds suspiciously like an answer bulked up for crossword symmetry.

The latter — I get that it's a necessary part of the setup for the dramatic conclusion. It just felt arbitrary(ish). Yes, it's a common deficit, common enough that it's probably a fine themer. But I would be happy to see BOTTOM OF THE NINTH in any other crossword as fill; not so much for DOWN BY THREE.

Why not ALL TIED UP, leading to a WALK OFF HOME RUN? Both of those are fine phrases I'd use as fill in other crosswords. Much preferable for me. I know the lengths don't match — BOTTOM OF THE NINTH is 16 and WALK OFF HOME RUN is 14 — but perhaps a mirror symmetry arrangement could have worked.

Interesting grid design, slipping in two long horizontal pieces of fill. Love, love, love SAN ANDREAS and its clue. Something so fun about the puzzle saying IT'S CALIFORNIA'S FAULT! Not so hot on the symmetrical entry, AUDIO TAPES, as CASSETTE TAPES feels much more strongly in the language. But overall, I like that David didn't need to pay much of a price to bring these long bad boys into the grid. Good stuff.

I enjoyed the effort to do something a little different with a baseball theme. A couple of iffy themers, but since the grid was well executed, I found the experience mostly entertaining. Who doesn't like a good story capped by a dramatic finish?

I hate to disagree with Jeff (actually, it's fun to disagree with Jeff) but each theme answer here is both perfect and necessary. The most dramatic possible walk-off hit requires each of these elements exactly as written. Watering down the scenario just so you could employ re-usable phrases would kill the tension. For this baseball fan (and my oh my, it's tough to be a baseball fan in Seattle) Mr. Kahn's puzzle is outstanding.