Word of the Day: OYES (57A: Cry for silence and attention) —
• • •
Almost impossible for me to finish. Tough overall, but that's what I expect on a Saturday. Whole puzzle skews before my time, but that also happens. I mean, NYNEX? I can never remember that. The Dells? I listen to lots of old music, still didn't know that. LE CAR? More oldeyness. Silk's puzzles tend to be anchored in the '60s ('60s music, '60s TV, '60s Oswald), when I wasn't yet born, so I routinely find it hard to find footing in his puzzles. But this wasn't what made this puzzle miserable to solve. It all ended up coming down to OYES, which I can't remember ever seeing, and DRIER, which I still don't understand (56A: Oil or ink additive). Secondary problems were NO BET, which I now get but which I had no hope of seeing even with NO-E- in place (I wanted NOTED), and DELOS, which I had has DOLOZ and then DOLOR and then (after I attempted the horrendous but correct OYES) DOLOS, and then I finally realized that the answer to 47A: "Aha!" wasn't "I KNOW IT!" but "I KNEW IT!" And that's where it ended: with a could-be-either vowel crossing a minor Greek island crossing whatever alternate olde-timey junk OYES is. I like challenges! I don't like (at all) when the challenge ends up at the gunkiest, worst-conceived part of the puzzle.
As for DRIER? I just don't know. You add DRIER to oil? DRIER is an additive? My language skills just break down here, as they broke down trying to understand what the hell "provision" meant in 46D: Password provision (ENTRY), as they broke down trying to understand both "Metro" and "line" in 44A: Metro line: Abbr. (RTE). I was staring at this for so long, wishing I could just make the '60s TV sidekick be TONTO, which was the only sidekick I could think of:
I think the only way I pulled out of this was to just start forcing the issue, typing in random things that seemed right but weren't working, and then somehow I shoved ENTRY into 46D and it all came together. The only one I felt bad about not getting more quickly was ROBIN. But man, DRIER. Man. That was the real killer. Still means nothing to me. So that clue on DRIER I really don't like, but I guess I can forgive. The whole I KNEW IT / DELOS / OYES (!?!?) thing. No. That's just bad. DELOS / OYES is bad, and having the mystery vowel in I KNEW IT be inside DELOS is bad. Everything boils down to OYES, which is supremely bad. I think you all are imagining that DELOS is a *lot* more famous than it is. I mean, I recognize it. Now. But ugh. And OYES. Seriously, imagine you struggle with a puzzle only to find out that what you were snagged on was OYES, a terrible, bottom-barrel piece of fill (problem one) that you thought could be spelled only two ways: OYEZ (yes) and OYER (which is, in fact, a part of a legal term—oyer and terminer—but which doesn't, apparently, apply here). OYES? ONO. Boo. I don't really even care about or remember the rest of the puzzle, except COFFEE RUSH is not a thing and QUADRUPLE PLAY is not a thing (even though it is the one thing that broke my puzzle wide open, finally):
From LSTS to OYES. That was my puzzle. LSTS and OYES: appropriately ugly bookends for a puzzle I am happy to put behind me.
Here's one of the beauties of this place. Some days the grid is an impetus for periphery discussions, discussions that continue all day long. If the grid is a rebus or has some other trick, quotation marks, say, then the discussion is about the limitations/solutions to solving electronically. If the puzzle contains some kind of food deal, the discussion is about whether or not it's correct to add BEANS, say, to chili. I always try to stir the pot by whining that I've never heard a dogsled driver yell the word MUSH. This outrage always fails to drum up any interest. Sigh.
Today I predict that baseball aficionados will take on QUADRUPLE PLAY.
I had a dnf but got really close. I almost quit with the far northwest and southeast unfinished, but when I finally figured MS DOS, I finished that corner.
That southeast, though, boy. No way. Five-letter 1960s TV sidekicks abound. "Rhoda" disappeared fast once I remembered she was newer and then got HOE DOWN. Next came "Tonto." I settled with "Robot." My sisters and I would be mysteriously too sick to go to church so we could stay home and watch that guy intone, "Danger, Will Robinson!" And therein lurks the real sidekick. ROBIN. Holy faceslap. Never even thought of him.
Lots of wrong thoughts:
"Roger" or "got it" for NO BET. With that clue, those work just fine. "Twill" for TWEED "Fresno" for FENWAY "oyez" for OYES. Well, hey, @Rex. This just got a "hmmm" from me. "tax" for SAX "down" for DORA. I'm pretty sure one set of my in-laws thinks my husband married down. And yes, I had it crossing HOE DOWN. Clever me.
Dastardly clue for SPLIT ENDS. "Trichoptilosis" looks like some kind of tiny vermin with menacing, waving tendrils and 96 eyes. Where's DORA? Oh, she had an embarrassing case of trichoptiloses and had to stay home to deal with the side-effects. But don't say anything, ok? That growth between her eyebrows will fade with time.
"Cause of bad-smelling refrigerator" SPOILAGE. Yeah, well, damn. Baking soda shmaking soda.
@Mac – great story about the student in Fairfield.
@Hartley70 – I'll be thinking about you today. Whatever happens outside of The Plan is not a catastrophe but rather an interesting wedding day story to be passed down.
I posted this on FaceBook last week because it makes me belly laugh. Anyone who has ever stood in front of 30 tenth-graders in late May will relate. This one's for us again, @JenCT.
I admit to taking great comfort that oyes bothered RP as much as it did me. I have been following this page for several months - scared at first but finding more comfort (I am way down on this list of good solvers) so it is always a joy to find that a similar bugaboo.
Although unlike the author of the blog, I was around in the sixties but still find the references problematic, and sometimes I am just thick. (Thought the Cyclades were a star system.)
Anyway, after considerable time, thanks to Rex for building my confidence. I have finally been able to complete a Saturday puzzle without peeking, although not todays.
Nice article by CNN on the increasing number of crossword puzzles in the Wall Street Journal (which are edited by the puzzle master Mike Shenk). Rex Parker is mentioned as well.
I've been doing them the past few months -- lots of fun. There have been at least several Patrick Berry puzzles in this time, as well as others by constructors you would recognize.
Maybe Rex can do another blog: "Rex Parker Does the WSJ Crossword Puzzle."
So LMS here is what you are looking for: As a baseball fan and former amateur ump, I would like to hear about "quadruple play." My knowledge of the rules of baseball goes far enough to know the "phantom fourth out." Rule. You CAN get four outs in a half inning, but not in a quadruple play...it requires very specific scenarios. Here's one:
Let's say there are two outs and baserunners on first second. The batter hits a ball into the right field corner for what looks like an easy double. So far so good. The baserunner from second has no problem scoring. The baserunner from first, in a hasty bid to get home, cuts the corner at third base without touching the bag--in clear violation of the rules and scurries home. Meanwhile, the batter has rounded second and is heading for third. After the other runners clear the bases, the batter gets tagged out at third. How to remedy the fact that there is an "illegal" run up on the board. An appeal play to third base can get the runner who was on first called out for a fourth out in the half inning and the run comes off the board. That's obviously not a quadruple play, because four outs were not logged on one play. Could the phantom fourth out rule be applied on a triple play? I have to go think about that one, but I still don't think it counts as a quadruple play because an appeal is separate from the play itself..
If this is a phrase used for other purposes, I would like to know, because I never heard of it.
2 hours. 19 errors. I relented to google after an hour and got serious misdirection. Lcvp, the famous WWII amphibious craft, knocked out STERNUM, which had such potential to be correct. penn insurance company of PA (!?) knocked out TORE, which had been an anchor. unum and usaa were possibilities, but neither was based in PA. Penn was the only 4-letter insurance company on the list. Oh well. SNIPPET knocked itself out as a low-likelihood entry.
Elsewhere, loden coat had a higher likelihood of being right than SANDY did, so loden stayed and SANDY went. boeing 727 was also pretty secure. TEAL is a synonym for cyan, sure, but there 1000s of others, and so TEAL went and boeing stayed.
A-1. FirstrAtE then FRONTseat. blindness set in as the solve wore on, and FRONTP--E meant nothing to me.
I spent 2 hours wondering how a baseball scorekeeper would encode "unassisted triple play" as Barry Silk seemed to want.
It is very easy to construct a puzzle no one can solve. So. Was this a very easy puzzle to construct, or what?
Fascinating. First time poster here. Yesterday took me 2x my normal Friday time despite it being easy for everyone else but today took me 1/2 my normal time. I didn't feel like I was particularly in tune with the puzzle except for getting MSDOS with no crosses... Just that it was super easy. Only problem in the whole grid was oyez->oyes. Fascinating how different people can experience things.
Record Saturday time for me. I don't think this is because I was alive (barely) in the sixties. I think it has a lot of straight word play without presuming specific knowledge of pop culture, sports, arts, etc.
@Loren Muse Smith - You're right, it's the QUADRUPLE PLAY that obsesses me. I initially thought that this item secured a position for this puzzle as a new low for the WS era, and that's saying a lot. An event so obscure that it has happened exactly twice (or so Teh Google would have it) in the 125-plus years of organized baseball? Really? But at least it isn't factually incorrect, unlike (as I recall) "stop on the Trans-Siberian railroad" = ULAN BATOR, which WS fought me over for days. When you add the other excruciatingly marginal items that Rex points out, though, I still think this one is right up there -- or down there, depending.
What is the point of items like this? No one is going to know about quadruple plays, or that there's a version of "oyez" that ends in -s. And so forth. I have long argued that these puzzles should be run through the NYT copy desk, and although copy editors can make mistakes too (I was one once), at least that procedure would cut down on such nonsense. The NYT's readers and loyal crossword solvers deserve better -- much better -- than this.
DNF for me today. I can't find the words to express how much I disliked this puzzle. (I never really like Silk's puzzles.) I like baseball, but have never even heard the phrase QUADRUPLE PLAY, and I asked the most knowledgeable baseball fan I know about it and he's never heard of it either. I figured the clue for COFFEE RUSH would be something coffee-related, but I've never heard that particular combination of words. And ENTRY is a "password provision"? I work in IT and I've never heard of that. And man, some of the glue required to create this monstrosity.
It sometimes seems to me that Silk in particular writes clues not because they're interesting or clever but to be deliberately obtuse, and because he can pat himself on the back about how smart he is. Reading his comments at xwordinfo about how he's posed the QUADRUPLE PLAY question to people for years and that to his knowledge one has never happened does little to dispel that perception.
Very tricky. I had BOSTON instead of FENWAY, so FIRSTPAGE instead of FRONTPAGE. Also thought SEX might produce a wail as easily as SAX...! And I still don't get ATIT for "in a row."
Interesting Saturday puzzle. My shadows SPoOn. (well, don't they?) NYNEX, NoNEX, what's the diff? Wanted Trichoptilosis to be 'bad breath' but then remembered 'halitosis' so I went with the much more serious affliction of SPLITENDS, oh my! ROBIN was my first entry but I was getting no traction in the SE so I took it out and then everything fell into place (or back into place. I'm always annoyed when the source of much of my black ink is from knowing the right answer and not believing it).
SQUEeze to SQUish to SQUEAK TOY. Forgot that I had learned my definition of CULLS was wrong from a previous puzzle, I flirted with mULLS 'cause mH_ISTO just seemed environmentally friendly this morning, EWE know what I mean?
Mr. Silk seems to have been cooking with ASTERNo today and I like how it crossed STERNUM.
I hope this puzzle CULMINATEs in a great Saturday for all. Thanks, BCS, this was the BEES KNEEBENDS.
Quadruple play occurred in September 2010 with bases loade and force outs at all spots. One of the four outs carried over to the next inning. First time in 53 years
Quadruple play could happen if the bases are loaded, the batter swings for strike three, out #1, but the ball eludes the catcher. The base runners attempt to advance but the catcher tags the runner near home, out #2, throws to third, runner from second is tagged, out #3, and then one more runner is tagged for out #4.
More on the QUADRUPLEPLAY: bases loaded, no outs. Batter takes a mighty cut at a pitch but the ball drops weakly in fair ground at the batter's feet. Catcher picks up the ball, tags the plate (one out) tags batter ( two outs) then throws to first for a tag (third out). First baseman takes no chances and throws to second for a rundown (fourth out.) Batting team manager charges out of the bull pen claiming all four tags were missed. A review shows the first, second and fourth tags were legit, so the play is scored as a triple play. But! It was engaged as a quadruple play defensively to ensure 3 valid outs. That is, a QUADRUPLEPLAY is a defensive strategy, not a scored play.
That's my best guess . . . @Z?
Thx to @anon for the phantom fourth out scenario. Good one!
My expert solver buddy called this a medium SatPuz. He objected to OYES, but otherwise a normal puz for him.
I was surprised at how well the solve flowed for me since Silk puzzles are challenging. I grew up in the 60s so that helped. Agree with Rex that "drier" makes no sense, has no context. Finally getting "Robin" was a bit of a doh moment.
My favorite wrong answer was latex->TWEED. My second favorite wrong answer was rib cage->STERNUM
IPANA at 2D was a harbinger of WOES to come. That and NYNEX are both LFCs. At least I knew the Cyclades were on this planet and were islands, but I could only narrow it down to somewhere in the other hemisphere. OYES‽ And then THERE IS the lack of DECENCY exhibited by cluing something boring like THERE IS by some obscurity (my knowledge of 1960's Top 20 songs (not #1's) is not encyclopedic).
It looks to me like QUADRUPLE PLAY was the seed answer. I'm a bit of a baseball junkie and it sounded vaguely familiar. I found this. However, since the last two outs are force outs, the run doesn't score, so the scenario doesn't actually occur as described.
Bases loaded fly out with all baserunners advancing without tagging... if the second and third outs are made at first base and second base, the defense is allowed to make a "fourth" out at third base to prevent that runner from scoring. Otherwise the run would count if runner crossed home before the third out. I do not believe this has ever happened in MLB, but I've heard it has happened internationally.... and it has probably happened in youth baseball, but who knows how it was umpired.
SO many do-overs, too much time. Club/CUFF; first rate/FRONT PAGE; spillage/SPOILAGE; Boston (ref. 'club')/FENWAY; Mta/RTE; twill/TWEED. And, I'm sorry, but - OYES? Trends toward 'plain English' too far. It's a Z, for CHRIST's sake.
Almost wishing I'd had a dentist appointment instead. But good COFFEE can smooth even the roughest road. Lovely day to stay indoors and drink more. Hola, Joaquin!
Top half medium and bottom half tough. It was so tough that the whole thing was tough for me.
MINSK always evokes Rochelle, Rochelle.
kOng before TOTO.
Still not sure about the connection between "Password provision" and ENTRY. Google was no help.
I Married DORA was on for half a season and ended by breaking the fourth wall in spectacular fashion. It was a complete WOE for me. I'll take The Explorer version every time.
I thought I knew '60s rock and roll. Just played The Dells song "THERE IS"...nope.
Was looking for something like prohis (see Boardwalk Empire) for "Prohibition enforcer", RAIDER seems kinda dull.
Lots tougher and a bit more lively than yesterday's, like it!
I could've sworn there was some kind of rebus going on for a minute because I was having trouble breaking it open. I was thinking SPOILed egg crossing faberge egg, and it took some time before realizing I was wrong. But that did add a lot of time because I kept looking for more rebus possibilities. Tough one though for sure
I Googled around for instances of quadruple plays, and there's some cute stuff, but most of them don't officially count as four outs. However, there's one instance I read that might actually work (I don't know if this has actually happened in real life, but it's easy to imagine that it could happen):
Player A is the batter Player B is the runner on 1st Player C is on 2nd Player D is on 3rd Player E is the 2nd baseman
With 0 outs and the bases loaded, Player A sends a line drive right at Player E. All runners take off on contact. Player E catches it (out 1). Player E then goes and tags Player B (out 2). Then he goes, and instead of touching 2nd base, he runs and tags Player C in no mans land (out 3).
The umpire notices, though, that Player D touched home before the tag was made on Player C.
When Player E chose to tag Player C instead of touching the base, he got into a what is defined by the rulebook as a rundown, meaning that run WOULD count. However, Player D left 3rd base before the ball was caught, meaning he needed to tag up back to 3rd base before scoring. But he didn't do this.
Therefore, Player E could then go and tag 3rd base to get Player D out (out 4).
It seems a little semantical, and it may not actually count as 4 outs. The umpires could just say that the run doesn't count, and the inning is over. But it's interesting, I guess.
2. A substance mixed with oil-paints, oils, inks, etc., to make them dry quickly.
1840 Penny Cycl. XVII. 145/2 To all paint a little sugar of lead, or litharge (dryers), should be added to make it dry quick. 1859 T. J. Gullick & J. Timbs Painting 208 All dryers..have in some degree a pernicious influence on colours. 1882 Encycl. Brit. XIV. 677/2 By slow degrees a proportion of ‘dryers’ is added [to linseed oil]. 1940 Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) IV. 91/1 The modern method is to heat the oil by means of closed steam coils..while the driers are employed in the soluble form. 1951 R. Mayer Artist's Handbk. iii. 157 Driers or siccatives are metallic salts combined with materials such as oils or resins which mix with the usual paint and varnish ingredients. 1958 T. Landau Encycl. Librarianship 113/2 Drier, a substance used in printing inks to expedite drying by evaporation.
The obscurity of this is matched by the cluing of DORA as a show that went on almost thirty years ago, had low ratings, and got cancelled after half a season.
Usually it doesn't bother me that Will Shortz hasn't seen a movie since 1985, but today the clue for ROBIN rankled. It could be clued in a 1000 different ways, many of them equally as vague as this one. There was the terrible George Clooney movie, or a main character in How I Met Your Mother, or the damn bird. Why did we have to pick the Robin from 50 years ago?
Adding onto my previous comment about a theoretical quadruple play, I found an actual instance of when this ALMOST happened. But instead of it actually happening, it resulted in (probably) the only instance where a batter hit into a triple play, yet drove in the winning run. It happened in Cuba in the 1970s:
Tie game, bases loaded, no outs. Fly ball to right, which looked like it wouldn't be caught, so the runners on 1st and 2nd took off. But the outfielder, Wildredo Sanchez, made a remarkable catch (out 1). He got up and threw to second (out 2), and then the ball was thrown to first (out 3).
But here's where it gets fun. The runner originally on 3rd was smart. After the catch, he tagged up back to third, and then ran home, and crossed the plate BEFORE the third out was recorded. Since that third out was not a force out, the rule states that the run counts. There was an appeal, but ultimately the run was upheld, and the offensive team took the lead and won.
You could imagine a scenario where the 3rd base runner DIDN'T tag up, and the appeal resulted in the runner being called out. I suppose this could be considered a quadruple play as well.
OYES RARES his ugly head today. Phew, that word and about 10 others that I didn't know or just got wrong. It started with DECorum and by gum, if I had the DECENCY, I might have finished this before bed-time... My COFFEE gave me a RISE ergo misspelling QUADRiPLE PLAY and that Dells song was TEERE IS. I also had TACO for the "him" in that 1939 song. Ugh... My last stupid mistake was penning in HAYRIDE and I started itching all over. The one and only ride I took on a bundle was full of fleas. I wanted to trichoptilosis on my bum something furious. @Wreck...I too am enjoying the WSJ puzzles...Thanks for the reminder. FIOS? I get AT&T. I like SQUEAK TOY...but I would have added a Y at the end. Off to enjoy the day. No rain (yet) but wishing @Hartley the very best on this special day....
My first reaction was: there is no toehold anywhere! Then I got in, via the NE: LSTS to LAP AT to AT IT (nice misleading clue). FRONT PAGE came in from the PA-- (by now I had STATE FLAG). And what a great misleading clue for FRONT PAGE, btw, though, because I'm a NY Times subscriber, I saw it early on.
At 54A was the best TOTO clue I've ever seen (and I've seen a great many, perhaps too many.) It took me a while to get COFFEE RUSH at 6D, even when I had COFFEE. Morning coffee doesn't give me anything resembling a RUSH; I'm lucky if it succeeds in prying my eyes open.
Bit by bit, I filled it almost all in, feeling so pleased with myself. But remaining was the wretched SE corner. I struggled and struggled, then finally gave up. I cheated, hence it's a DNF. I had SPLIT, but couldn't come up with any idea other than SPLIT lips, so I looked up the tricho clue at 32D. Once I had that, I was able to complete it, but it's still a DNF. A really great challenge.
@Karen -- Re: AT IT for "in a row.". They both mean having a fight.
@Hartley70 -- Everyone else here seems to be wishing you rain for good luck. Not me. I'm wishing you an early end to the rain today, long before the festivities begin, and a rainbow over the water as the vows are being exchanged.
@DeeJay, a dropped third strike is a strikeout, but it isn't scored as an out. The catcher's tag on the batter is the unassisted put out.
Relatedly, a failure to tag or throw out the batter after a dropped 3rd strike puts the batter on first. That's how 4 strikeout innings can happen. Indeed, there is no upper limit to the number of strikeouts a pitcher can record in a game. There is a limit in the number of 4 strikeout innings a catcher can record in his (rather short) career.
N.B. Dropped 3rd strike applies when first base is open. When there is a runner on first, batter is out even if strike is dropped -- for the same reason the infield fly rule exists. This applies to strategic DTS swings at wild pitches, too, I believe.
Hah! We whupped this nasty Saturday puppy. Mrs. Mohair guided us through the OYEz trap by arguing that all Greek Islands seem to end in "S" (think LESBOS). We lost some time by thinking Hayride a gimme at 49A (Baleful affair), but the delightful SPLITENDS killed that one, and gave us HOEDOWN and NOBET - that which stymied Rex opened the difficult SE for us.
Disagree with a lot of @Rex's complaints here, thought this one was a lot of fun, liked the cluing, and had a ton of aha moments - not the least of which was 47A. The inclusion of the word "lore" made the baseball clue valid, proven so by anon 9:16's explanation.
Think Rex is wrong in complaining about 1a being too '60's - It's a Saturday clue, and Lee Harvey Oswald's past is more than just pop culture. On the other hand, we're '60's people and don't remember the Dells - tough one there.
Great clues, great Saturday challenge Barry Silk - thanks.
THERE IS plenty of DECENCY in this puzzle. What stood out for me was HOEDOWN, STALE JOKE, STATE FLAG, FRONT PAGE, TIGER'S EYE and COLOR WHEEL. However, caffeine rush, sugar rush, yes, COFFEE RUSH no, unless I must run out for a coffee but quick. And SQUEAK TOY has always been squeaky toy pour moi.
Thank you for not having a French phrase today. Well, except the bastardized OYES, LE CAR, and LA PAT. Avec plaisir.
A-STERN crossing STERN-UM, KNEEB ENDS and SPLIT ENDS -- how are these even allowed? What is a KNEEB anyway?
Jim Horne was nice enough to provide this excellent link describing the details of a hypothetical QUADRUPLE PLAY at xwordinfo.
Wail producer: SEX (if you are a cat).
I was going to post the HOEDOWN from Copland's "Rodeo" -- too rowdy for this rainy Saturday. Instead, let us listen to Victoria DELOS Angeles.
PS. The unsightly OYES could have been easily fixed: (Domine Iesu) CHRISTE | EYES or CHRISTA | AYES with multiple clue choices. Either one would have been a better choice in my view to avoid the variant of OYEZ, but the Bulgarian artist CHRISTO was obviously deemed by Messrs. Silk & Shortz to be worth it.
One is always hesitant to jump on a constructor for a puzzle that was a dnf for the critic. But, I think this was just awful. Quadruple play is just bad period. Even sussable answers like squeak toy are just wrong as they are/were known as squeaky toys. A-1 =front page? I mean, I get it but I think it is just sort of obscurely crappy. Then there is the matter of the way too many 60's clues, which is when I was a kid. Fios is a service offered by Verizon but not in Washington State, where I live. Thus, even tho I have Verizon cellular service and regularly get sales pitches for stuff from them, I had never heard of Fios until today. Just for good measure, I think Raider stinks as an answer for Prohibition enforcer.
Generally a pleasurable puzzle for me; challenging, requiring effort, but no major stalls. Messed up the SW by misspelling SQUEeKTOY, ending up with ReInER in 40A. I had 57A as OYEz, too, so 41D was nENOz, which doesn't mean anything. Satisfied with getting most of an RP challenging Saturday in less than an hour.
To Karen -- "AT IT" (two words), as in going at it.
A drier is not an obscure reference in the painting world. Sometimes you want the medium to dry more quickly (so the next layer won't mix) and sometimes more slowly (so you can keep working what you've put on the surface). There are additives of various sorts for each (not to mention a hairdryer for watercolorists).
I thought a quadruple play can occur only on a dropped third strike (which counts as the first out) when the bases are loaded. I didn't know the fourth out cab carry over to the next inning.
Even while I dnf in the NE and SE I enjoyed the challenge and feel pretty good about getting most of it.
I was sure ROBIN was ROwaN, partner of Martin. Did not get the dumb DORA and missed DRIER and, of course, NOBET.
I misremembered it as MeDOS , speaking of dumb, and thought it was NiNEX, thought Close-Up was an old TV show (ha ha) and wanted SeX for SAX (Hi, Karen!)
I really liked KNEEBENDS, SQUEAKYTOY, SNIPPET, IKNEWIT and COLORWHEEL.
I thought parts of this puzzle played easy for Saturday. With the exception of that SE corner, and the Delos/oyes/ewe/trijet/raider/bit. Enjoyed the clue for MSDos.
Re: QUADRUPLE PLAY bases loaded SCENARIOs. No. The outs are all still force outs. The 'Appeal Force Out" here would be a "fourth out," but officially only three outs are recorded. The Official MLB Rules (page 54) calls this "an apparent 'fourth' out" (emphasis added). You can also find video of "QUADRUPLE PLAYS." They are basically players who don't realize that the inning is over. And no, the extra out would not carry over to the next inning. I suspect that in the age of video review we will see more "better safe than sorry" "fourth outs" just in case outs are over-turned on review. I put "QUADRUPLE PLAY" in the same category as finding Jesus in your grilled cheese, i.e., it is mildly amusing to discover that people will believe just about anything.
I hated this puzzle. Usually I like Barry Silk's work but this one? Gag me. OYES might be a legit var. of OYEz but I ain't buyin' it. NYNEX? Never heard of it but then I'm from the west coast and had a whole bunch of other budding telephone companies to contend with. Just too regional for me but now we know, "We won't be foold again.".
Lots of cute explanations for the QUADRUPLE PLAY. This one seems the best to me: y'all should pay more attention to xwordinfo. Now I'll admit you have to be pretty familiar with baseball rules to get this but it makes the most sense to me.
As a Chicagoan and a lover of vintage soul music, I found "THERE IS" to be one of the puzzle's few gimmes. "QUADRUPLE PLAY" looked pretty weird to me, but since it was the only thing that fit there, I went with it.
What flummoxed me, as usual, were those bloody names and brand names. I still don't know what a "LECAR" is, but I'm assuming it's a brand of automobile; those two side-by-side brand names (or three, if you count MS-DOS) in the NW absolutely stymied me; and I still have no idea what "Soul producer = KIA" is supposed to be about. (The Dells' hit "There Is," definitely "soul" music, was produced by Bobby Miller on the Cadet label --no help there!)
Sorry folks, but there is NO SUCH THING as a quadruple play. Three outs end the inning. No fourth out counts; it never occurred. No out carries forth to the next inning.
@rex -- With you word for word this morning, even though I skew a little older than you. @loren -- Your note to M&A... priceless!
Like @Karen, was thinking SeX instead of SAX producing that wail. Two things that would have been cool: 1) ROBIN abutting HOED, and it would have been sweet if it abutted HOOD, and 2) BEES abutting KNEE, when it would have been perfect if it abutted KNEES.
The top was medium for me, and the bottom tough. Not knowing CHRISTO hurt, but it is always a perk to see TOTO in the grid.
Exact same complaints as Rex. Thought I had finished the SW but was feeling queasy about it because I had DOLOZ (IKNOWIT and OYEZ, both "reasonable" to me given the cluing, so I punted the Cyclades answer as being "make up a 5 letter crosswordese string"). I struggled with the SE but finally got it, though like Rex DRIER and ENTRY sure don't parse despite all the grammatical vectors I tried into their clues. So when I filled in the last square and it said that I wasn't done, I looked first at the SE but couldn't see anything wrong with it -- to the degree that I understood it. So I looked again at the SW and that awfully suspicious DOLOZ. It never even occurred to me that the longer answer might be past tense (IKNEWIT), I suppose that's on me but come on, this is a very minimal clue. But OYES? Maybe I need to read more but that seems like at least a (var.) of OYEZ, which I thought was standard and which is what I've always seen. Oh well.
I always finish Silk puzzles, but I was sure this one would be an exception. Three business names next to each other, MSDOS, Ipana, Nynex, obscure (to me) TV reference - Dora?? Never heard of "the Dells," started with Rowan of Rowan and Martin instead of Robin, and was really stymied in the SE. It broke when "Tweed" popped into my head. I don't understand our Leader's complaint about "Delos," a perfectly fine geographical clue for a Saturday.
What I find with Silk, Berry, and some of the other really fine constructors, is that despite my personal difficulties with pop-culture information, I almost never find a Natick. I might object to "quadruple play," but that was the only possible answer there. Nice Saturday workout. Thanks, Mr. Silk.
I DNF'd due to the SE. I stubbornly had Rowan (of Laugh-In fame), not ROBIN. And I never would have gotten RTE for anything Metro-connected. I was hoping it would be RER! If I *had* figured out ROBIN, NOBET would have been a gimme. In poker, a player who passes on the opportunity to bet "checks". I needed to Google for MINSK. And for a long time I had MacOS where MSDOS belongs. The rest started out hard, but ended up doable.
OYES is legit. If you ever visit the Supreme Court that's what the bailiff says before the first case on the docket is called. Sounds just like "Oh yes", However, it is *spelled* oyez.
A top-notch Saturday, I thought - very enjoyable to puzzle out, and satisfying to finish. I agree with others that the SE was tough, especially with my Hayride and tonto-->RowaN and the Sahara as a Sedan (having been faked out by many a Sierra and Tornado, or whatever they are). Finally came up with ENTRY, SANDY, then DR?ER and ROBIN. Moment of shame: maya lin (because of "meetS") before CHRISTO, whom I revere. I hope someday to remember LSTS - I always have to run through, "No, not LSATS, not LSD..." May the SOTS enjoy their COFFEE RUSH.
The lovely PuzEatinSpouse and I did battle with this SatPuz while at the local pancake house. Had no electronic devices along to do research on, which really forced us to focus on just plain seat-of-the-pants (sans under-ease 2G technology) solvin. Amazinly, we polished this sucker off, before the breakfast test arrived. Our rating: Eazier than snot with an azterizk*.
*Our azterizk: OYEZ/DELOZ. That Z was the final square filled, and we circled it, to make note of our bewilderment. Back home, our research dictionary confirmed that OYES is a perfectly good varmint version of OYEZ. So, learned somethin, there.
@Gill I. -- QUADRIPLEPLAY. har. Did U know that if a team hits into a QUADRUPLEPLAY, they have to start their next inning at bat with one out? And if U trust M&A on that, go ahead … pull my finger. Speakin of which ...
@muse: Day-um, darlin. 2-G technology. Gee #1: One size fits all. I question the comfort index on that claim, for either yer very bony or yer trans-pleasinly-EIEIO-plump customers, depending on the design size. Gee #2: Can be purchased with matchin vented trousers, to maintain that VW diesel look. The question has to come up: do U recommend this product, from personal experience? Has it been tested on a mix of cinnamon rolls and vodka?
@009: dryer [also DRIER] dictionary def #2: a substance mixed with oil paint or ink to promote drying. They didn't mention the oil without the paint, tho. Not sure why U would want yer oil to dry up.
fave plural weeject of convenience: TES. fave word that could fool m&e if it were bogus: TRIJET.
@Seth - At least Wilfredo Sanchez is a real player. As for your SCENARIO, the run should not count because both runners are out on force outs. The source to this confusion seems to be that scenarists don't remember that if a runner doesn't tag up on a fly out the put out is forced. As to the game to which you refer, I can't find anything beyond Thomas Boswell recounted it. This columnist wasn't above listing Don Mattingly as a shortstop to make his prose work so I take his story with a grain of salt. If it did happen (and officials do make mistakes) the run was allowed in error.
@Alias Z - Horne's link is the same one I linked to. As I said earlier, Baseball-Reference's scenario is also in error for the same reason I mention in my earlier post and the paragraph above. That even a web site like Baseball-Reference gets this wrong tells you just how obtuse and obscure this is. Of course, this means the situation will occur in the World Series this year.
@LMS - See what you unleashed? (Just kidding - This is all on Silk/Shortz)
Wow! What fun caused here by the QUADRUPLEPLAY. Of course it can't exist in reality, but it sure does in lore (see about ten posts above) - so the clue is just fine. And @Z is probably right - we'll be seeing more of them as extra tags are being made to be "sure" in this age of video replay.
OYEs/OYEZ - Jeez, I'm so sure I've seen OYES used from time to time, although OYEz was my first guess too. Just checked an online dictionary and it says OYEZ or OYEs. We guessed the "s" because every Greek island we could think of ends in S. Surprised by all the noise here about this one.
Anybody else here visit CHRISTO's "The Gates" in Central Park a decade back? Thought the idea was a waste of time and money until I grudgingly got dragged on a trip through the park when it was completed. Turned a dull February day into a splash of brilliance. Something totally different. Really neat.
I hated, hated, hated this puzzle (pussle?, Silk's pretty free and easy with his esses and zees). I agree with every criticism. Plus, I'm not sure that "Okie" is not a pejoritive term. I liked yesterday's outing, and I know that Saturdays are supposed to be harder, but this was ridiculous; you gotta blame Shortz (Shorts?) unless this was the only submission, which I doubt.
@Fred - If OKIE was ever a pejoritive the song "I'm Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee" has usurped the negative. I have nephew-in-law from Muskogee and he calls himself nothing but an OKIE. And I think the horror of SPLITENDS was discovered by shampoo marketers circa 1972.
Dnf at IPANA/SEX, the latter causing the raising of an eyebrow.
Isn't it a SQUEAKyTOY, or a SQUEezeTOY? Figured it out, but doesn't sound right.
Loved clue for EWE...I had EyE at first, but with TIGERSEYE in the grid, smelled a rat.
My nit is with clue for LECAR. My first new car was a 1985 Rabbit GTi. I TORE up the roads with that beauty. $9,000 new, and I could blow past 911s in the esses at Lime Rock. (Sure, they blew me away I the straightaway, but anybody can go fast in a straight line...it's in the curves that the GTi came into its own... I unabashedly admit to many feelings of superiority at outperforming the guys and girls in the Porsches with my humble vw.) No stock LECAR could do that...
I thought this was a pretty good 3/4-size puzzle, connected (barely) to two awful mini-puzzles. MINSK and DANTE (as clued) crossing IPANA and NYNEX (with any clue) was just mean-spirited.
Wow, wow, wow! I seem to be the odd man out here. I will never rate a Silky puzzle as easy, but I must have been riding in on Barry's coat tails. Didn't exactly sail through this one, but I found it easier than most are reporting. Fess up for looking up the DELLS hit, I am notoriously bad at remembering song titles. QUADRUPLE PLAY fit, so I left it and didn't think twice about it. Figured OYES was a var. and left it, again no further thought. I seldom question the puzzle, when I do I am usually wrong.
The only hang up I had was trying to be clever by putting IHOP in at 6A thinking sausage link. (Food on the brain, as per usual). Wanted SQUEAKY TOY til I ran out of room. Loved the TOTO clue.
What Dante said, loosely translated, is "He listens well who takes note." I.e., who pays attention to what is being said. "..who takes NOTES.." not only confused me, it is totally incorrect. But I do note (sic) that it is only the most recent example of the growth of functional illiteracy in this country which is gradually leaking even into the NYTimes, and, alas, into the crossword puzzles as well.
@Mohair and @Oisk -- I also visited CHRISTO's The Gates after a snowstorm. I'd been fully prepared to hate it. As a lover of Nature and Central Park, I thought it was the height of artistic hubris and a prime example of "gilding the lily" (the real quote, actually, is "paint the lily") on Christo's part. Do you improve on Nature by, gasp, shrouding it? But because the park was white and barren, without foliage or flowers, those cheerful orange gates really livened it up. They were playful and very graceful. I ended up loving the exhibit. (It should, of course, be mentioned that the bleakness of winter scenery generally depresses me, so this was the perfect antidote.)
This was likely one of the easiest Saturdays ever for me - but I get Rex's comment about the generation gap....without MINSK, LECAR, etc. blockage would've been severe. QUADRUPLEPLAY is a real stretch because you can't record 4 outs in an inning, even though the passed ball strikeout, can in theory lead to 4 plays(3 outs) recorded - 2nd & 3rd no outs, batter K's (strikeout but no out), passed ball, runner at 3rd thrown out at the plate, team throws to 3rd trying to get 2nd base runner who (deer in the headlights) delays going to 3rd, gets by, this runner tries to score, gets thrown out at the plate, original batter meanwhile runs around bases, and say tries to take 3rd, then he too gets thrown out. 4 plays, 3 outs - I guess a QUADRUPLEPLAY
@teed/mn, I thought your BEES' KNEEBENDS were the cat's meOWLET, Momma.
Have to say the NW kind of made my teeth itch. The first run-through gave me only KNEEBENDS (marred by a quibble) and ONE'S ELF. The rest elicited nothing at all till the rest of the puzzle had whipped my brain into Saturday mode.
@MetroGnome, the SOUL is a car model manufactured by Kia; the fact that Kia is a Korean company slips in a little STALE JOKE. Just for balance, there's another automotive entry: Renault seemed to think LE CAR was a necessary hint,in case anyone mistook it for LE Breadbox, f'rinstance. I remembered it because LE CAR was what got me saying Ruh-nalt instead of Ruh-noh. Two money entries, also: THE REIS, Brazillion currency [if you think we have problems,just try imagining 2000% inflation] and the Russian QUADRUBLEPLAY. Since I wasn't burdened with an excess of baseball knowledge, I saved myself all kinds of time today not worrying about that.
OYES I said OYES I will OYES and I'll rejoice in my SQUEAKy TOY...
Overall, thought that this was a more raw Silk than usual, teetering between DECorum and DECENCY. You have to admit that SAXy SWEATER had rather ASTERNUM look ATIT.
Anybody out there remember Bucky Beaver of Ipana fame? And was I the only one who initially had MacOS instead of MSDos? There were Mac clones in the early 90s.
Maybe because I was born in the 40's and have traveled the Greek islands and don't know very much about baseball, I found this puzzle tough but doable. Stop whining, everybody. I never complain about the latest rapper and stuff like that!
Good,fun puzzle. RAIDER and LSTS are weak, though. DNF due to OYEs, but that's my own fault for not double-checkinh my downs. Never heard of DELOS, but I should have inferred it. IKNOWIT to me would not work for aha! as it's not a standalone phrase.
Sorry for late comments but still wanted to chime in on this puzzle, because I don't see as much complaining as I expected about the two answers that annoyed me the most:
COLORWHEEL: I had no idea this is related to use of "shades". Is this well known?
CULL: I know it as meaning "to selectively reduce" such as "culling a herd". Meaning seems too far away from the clue "Gathers"
I will, however, defend two other entries:
ROBIN (60's TV sidekick): although I wasn't around then, the 1960s era "Batman" TV show had a big cultural aftereffect. And Robin is one of the most famous fictional sidekicks anyway.
DELOS: I've never been there, but know that most Greek islands end in "OS", so entered those letters first. Then easy once I got the L from STALEJOKE, since DELOS was important both religiously (cult of Apollo) and politically (important part of Athenian empire).
Supposedly there was a quadruple play in a White Sox-Royals game in September 2010. The scenario makes sense, but I can't find much corroboration of it. The fourth out was carried over into the next inning. http://bottomofthefourth.blogspot.com/2010/09/white-sox-pull-off-rare-quadruple-play.html
Also: "Oyes" and "No bet" are just sloppy, lazy clue concoction.
@Rick Schindler - Sigh. Too bad the Royals played the Tigers the night they hit into a quadruple play against the White Sox. Tell you what, send me $1,000 and I will forward your Nigerian inheritance forthwith.
I have stared bleary-eyed at puzzles before, despaired of ever getting a foothold, persevered, and finally triumphed. But never have I come so close to quitting as today. I had stuck in TOTO but nothing else in the SW. I had a little southern "soul patch" with -JOKE, -JET, and -EEL spoking out to who-knew-what. Added HOEDOWN and the inferred W to -HEEL. Then just stared. I didn't know anything else, and 3/4 of the clues made NO SENSE WHATSOEVER to me. I thought about Googling, which I never do; it would be easy enough to get a couple things like the WS venue, etc. Nah, the hell with iy, this'll be a DNF.
Then I thought about a COLORWHEEL; that has "shades," eh? This led to SCENARIO...and the whole thing somehow opened up. I was bothered by SQUEAKTOY; wasn't there another "Y" in there? And though QUADRUPLEPLAY was the now-obvious answer, I object to the clue. (ALL the clues were definitely Saturday-level, but this one! Yikes!) "Super-rare" means the event actually happened, surely fewer than, say, five times. But this event exists only in SCENARIOs: hypothetical situations. No way can there factually occur a quadruple play. BTW, I have NEVER understood, and don't think I could ever be MADE to understand, why that idiotic rule exists about a dropped third strike enabling the batter to advance. Three strikes and you're out, mister, go take a seat.
Some places I came to on this newly-opened journey caused headslaps: FENWAY: DUH!! SALEM, of course! etc. Other places, like the stubborn NW, not so much. That was the last to fall. Couldn't 1-across have been clued some other way? That's the first thing I saw, and it left a bad taste, as of SPOILAGE. We do NOT need to glorify this idiot's name any further. Last letter was the T of NYNET and...SAT??? What does "wail" have to do with...oh, wait. A SAX! That wails, and I guess NYNEX was a thing. So a single letter writeover at the very end, and done! Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat always makes for a high mark, but I really wanted that squeaky toy. A-.
My biggest problem with this puz was spilling my Red Bull on it and having ink leech all over. Shoulda waited until it was DRIER. And then there’s the continuing lack of yeah babies.
No prob with OYES as I have seen it that way and entered it as such.
They may call it a Q-PLAY, but it really isn’t. And no possible carry-over to the next inning. The only way to start an inning with one out is if there are no players remaining (because of injury, ejection, etc.) to fill in the lineup spot for the first batter that inning.
I liked this Sat-puz, but did not find it as smooth as Barry’s usual Silk.
I think the keyword we need to highlight in this clue is "lore". To me, it's similar to telling incoming freshman that there's a pool on the roof of the high school. It's just barely believable enough to be intriguing and perhaps the customary welcome to the new guy. In regards to the possibility of a quadruple play, I see it more likely that the fly ball is caught in the outfield, 2 base runners caught trying to tag up, and 1 who failed to tag the base prior to advancing. Like you said though, not sure if the base running error would technically count as the 4th out.
OYES, THEREIS a SCENARIO about SPOILAGE, ALAS, EWE know MI6 DEALs with a bad egg, IKNEWIT was a SPYON the FRONTPAGE, the SNIPPET was about ASTERN Daniel Craig.
Once again, late to the puzzle and late to the comments. This was a tale of 2 puzzles for me: pretty easy North half (except for FIOS. What IS that?), and brutal South half. Many long staring sessions, many false starts and writeovers and wtf's. Eventually, I had to accept DRIER (in oil, really?) and the S on the end of OYES, because many Greek islands end in OS.
Overall, I think this was a good puzzle with devilish cluing, and it seems a feat to have limped in with a correct solution.
I'm late, of course, because. evidently, I'm not ready for prime time on really difficult Saturday puzzles.
I'll limit myself to just two destroyers:
QUADRUPLEPLAY, which had ramifications for the whole puzzle. I'm a baseball fan, and this term is alien, even absurd to me. But the statisticians of the sport undoubtedly know of it.
EWE, very clever clue that was just beyond my reach.
Today's cross. The problelm you had with spelling of oye was that you were thinking in English, but it makes perfect sense in Spanish where it means "listen up" or even "Hey there." (second person familiar, command.) I didn't even notice the spelling problem as I'm surrounded by Spanish speakers here in SoCal. The come-t-order cry in English Courts of course is Oyez. Maybe the crossword author thought in Spanish but forgot to tell us. : )
I've been through the quadruple play scenario with a variety of umpiring instructors, and they agree on one simple principle:
There *are* more than three outs in an inning in the official scorebook when (1) three "normal" outs have been executed; (2) an appeal afterward is upheld, and invalidates a run scored. In such a case, the official scorer credits the three outs achieved in active play (all fielders get their assist and put-out statistics), and then the official scorer records the appeal out. The player who acts on the appeal gets credit for a put-out, as well.
Theoretically, this could result in six outs in an inning.
The issue here is a quadruple play. Since four offensive players are to be thrown out on the play, we have the bases loaded with no outs. Runners are Able on third, Baker on second, Charlie on first, and Dolton batting.
Dolton belts a long ball to the outfield. All three runners come around, but fail to tag home plate. However, they wait past the home-plate area as Dolton rounds the bases, trying for an inside-the-park home run. The centerfielder catches up to the ball, throws to home plate, where the catcher tags out Dolton. The catcher then also tags the three runners (who have presumably scored). Catcher appeals to the umpire, who upholds the appeal.
The official scorebook will show a 8-2 putout on Dolton, then three outs (credited to the catcher) to nullify the three runs. The inning is over. No outs carry over to the next inning. It's a quadruple play.
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For added trivialities, consider the case in which the play would normally be a long single that scores one or two runs. However, the center fielder bobbles the ball and then fires his throw to the plate well over the catcher's head. The ball rolls to the backstop as Charlie and Dolton continue to round the bases. The catcher chases down the ball and returns just in time to tag out Dolton at the plate. Then catcher appeals and the other three outs are effected as above.
Since the error breaks the flow of contribution to Dolton's out, the catcher gets sole credit for all: an unassisted quadruple play.
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Finally, consider this same scenario, but starting with two outs. IN this case, the quadruple play is still scored as above, and the official scorebook shows six outs for the half-inning.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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99 comments:
Here's one of the beauties of this place. Some days the grid is an impetus for periphery discussions, discussions that continue all day long. If the grid is a rebus or has some other trick, quotation marks, say, then the discussion is about the limitations/solutions to solving electronically. If the puzzle contains some kind of food deal, the discussion is about whether or not it's correct to add BEANS, say, to chili. I always try to stir the pot by whining that I've never heard a dogsled driver yell the word MUSH. This outrage always fails to drum up any interest. Sigh.
Today I predict that baseball aficionados will take on QUADRUPLE PLAY.
I had a dnf but got really close. I almost quit with the far northwest and southeast unfinished, but when I finally figured MS DOS, I finished that corner.
That southeast, though, boy. No way. Five-letter 1960s TV sidekicks abound. "Rhoda" disappeared fast once I remembered she was newer and then got HOE DOWN. Next came "Tonto." I settled with "Robot." My sisters and I would be mysteriously too sick to go to church so we could stay home and watch that guy intone, "Danger, Will Robinson!" And therein lurks the real sidekick. ROBIN. Holy faceslap. Never even thought of him.
Lots of wrong thoughts:
"Roger" or "got it" for NO BET. With that clue, those work just fine.
"Twill" for TWEED
"Fresno" for FENWAY
"oyez" for OYES. Well, hey, @Rex. This just got a "hmmm" from me.
"tax" for SAX
"down" for DORA. I'm pretty sure one set of my in-laws thinks my husband married down. And yes, I had it crossing HOE DOWN. Clever me.
Dastardly clue for SPLIT ENDS. "Trichoptilosis" looks like some kind of tiny vermin with menacing, waving tendrils and 96 eyes. Where's DORA? Oh, she had an embarrassing case of trichoptiloses and had to stay home to deal with the side-effects. But don't say anything, ok? That growth between her eyebrows will fade with time.
"Cause of bad-smelling refrigerator" SPOILAGE. Yeah, well, damn. Baking soda shmaking soda.
@Mac – great story about the student in Fairfield.
@M&A - (Breakfast test alert) - may the black winds of your small intestine always escape the gas meter's detection.
@Hartley70 – I'll be thinking about you today. Whatever happens outside of The Plan is not a catastrophe but rather an interesting wedding day story to be passed down.
I posted this on FaceBook last week because it makes me belly laugh. Anyone who has ever stood in front of 30 tenth-graders in late May will relate. This one's for us again, @JenCT.
cry for silence and attention
Good stuff today, Barry, as usual.
I admit to taking great comfort that oyes bothered RP as much as it did me. I have been following this page for several months - scared at first but finding more comfort (I am way down on this list of good solvers) so it is always a joy to find that a similar bugaboo.
Although unlike the author of the blog, I was around in the sixties but still find the references problematic, and sometimes I am just thick. (Thought the Cyclades were a star system.)
Anyway, after considerable time, thanks to Rex for building my confidence. I have finally been able to complete a Saturday puzzle without peeking, although not todays.
AmandaPup
Sort of off topic:
Nice article by CNN on the increasing number of crossword puzzles in the Wall Street Journal (which are edited by the puzzle master Mike Shenk). Rex Parker is mentioned as well.
Link to CNN article
I've been doing them the past few months -- lots of fun. There have been at least several Patrick Berry puzzles in this time, as well as others by constructors you would recognize.
Maybe Rex can do another blog: "Rex Parker Does the WSJ Crossword Puzzle."
So LMS here is what you are looking for: As a baseball fan and former amateur ump, I would like to hear about "quadruple play." My knowledge of the rules of baseball goes far enough to know the "phantom fourth out." Rule. You CAN get four outs in a half inning, but not in a quadruple play...it requires very specific scenarios. Here's one:
Let's say there are two outs and baserunners on first second. The batter hits a ball into the right field corner for what looks like an easy double. So far so good. The baserunner from second has no problem scoring. The baserunner from first, in a hasty bid to get home, cuts the corner at third base without touching the bag--in clear violation of the rules and scurries home. Meanwhile, the batter has rounded second and is heading for third. After the other runners clear the bases, the batter gets tagged out at third. How to remedy the fact that there is an "illegal" run up on the board. An appeal play to third base can get the runner who was on first called out for a fourth out in the half inning and the run comes off the board. That's obviously not a quadruple play, because four outs were not logged on one play. Could the phantom fourth out rule be applied on a triple play? I have to go think about that one, but I still don't think it counts as a quadruple play because an appeal is separate from the play itself..
If this is a phrase used for other purposes, I would like to know, because I never heard of it.
Too tough for me. Decided to try it because I can't go yard saling...when will the rain stop???
2 hours. 19 errors. I relented to google after an hour and got serious misdirection. Lcvp, the famous WWII amphibious craft, knocked out STERNUM, which had such potential to be correct. penn insurance company of PA (!?) knocked out TORE, which had been an anchor. unum and usaa were possibilities, but neither was based in PA. Penn was the only 4-letter insurance company on the list. Oh well. SNIPPET knocked itself out as a low-likelihood entry.
Elsewhere, loden coat had a higher likelihood of being right than SANDY did, so loden stayed and SANDY went. boeing 727 was also pretty secure. TEAL is a synonym for cyan, sure, but there 1000s of others, and so TEAL went and boeing stayed.
A-1. FirstrAtE then FRONTseat. blindness set in as the solve wore on, and FRONTP--E meant nothing to me.
I spent 2 hours wondering how a baseball scorekeeper would encode "unassisted triple play" as Barry Silk seemed to want.
It is very easy to construct a puzzle no one can solve. So. Was this a very easy puzzle to construct, or what?
Fascinating. First time poster here. Yesterday took me 2x my normal Friday time despite it being easy for everyone else but today took me 1/2 my normal time. I didn't feel like I was particularly in tune with the puzzle except for getting MSDOS with no crosses... Just that it was super easy. Only problem in the whole grid was oyez->oyes. Fascinating how different people can experience things.
Record Saturday time for me. I don't think this is because I was alive (barely) in the sixties. I think it has a lot of straight word play without presuming specific knowledge of pop culture, sports, arts, etc.
@Loren Muse Smith - You're right, it's the QUADRUPLE PLAY that obsesses me. I initially thought that this item secured a position for this puzzle as a new low for the WS era, and that's saying a lot. An event so obscure that it has happened exactly twice (or so Teh Google would have it) in the 125-plus years of organized baseball? Really? But at least it isn't factually incorrect, unlike (as I recall) "stop on the Trans-Siberian railroad" = ULAN BATOR, which WS fought me over for days. When you add the other excruciatingly marginal items that Rex points out, though, I still think this one is right up there -- or down there, depending.
What is the point of items like this? No one is going to know about quadruple plays, or that there's a version of "oyez" that ends in -s. And so forth. I have long argued that these puzzles should be run through the NYT copy desk, and although copy editors can make mistakes too (I was one once), at least that procedure would cut down on such nonsense. The NYT's readers and loyal crossword solvers deserve better -- much better -- than this.
DNF for me today. I can't find the words to express how much I disliked this puzzle. (I never really like Silk's puzzles.) I like baseball, but have never even heard the phrase QUADRUPLE PLAY, and I asked the most knowledgeable baseball fan I know about it and he's never heard of it either. I figured the clue for COFFEE RUSH would be something coffee-related, but I've never heard that particular combination of words. And ENTRY is a "password provision"? I work in IT and I've never heard of that. And man, some of the glue required to create this monstrosity.
It sometimes seems to me that Silk in particular writes clues not because they're interesting or clever but to be deliberately obtuse, and because he can pat himself on the back about how smart he is. Reading his comments at xwordinfo about how he's posed the QUADRUPLE PLAY question to people for years and that to his knowledge one has never happened does little to dispel that perception.
Very tricky. I had BOSTON instead of FENWAY, so FIRSTPAGE instead of FRONTPAGE. Also thought SEX might produce a wail as easily as SAX...! And I still don't get ATIT for "in a row."
Interesting Saturday puzzle. My shadows SPoOn. (well, don't they?) NYNEX, NoNEX, what's the diff? Wanted Trichoptilosis to be 'bad breath' but then remembered 'halitosis' so I went with the much more serious affliction of SPLITENDS, oh my! ROBIN was my first entry but I was getting no traction in the SE so I took it out and then everything fell into place (or back into place. I'm always annoyed when the source of much of my black ink is from knowing the right answer and not believing it).
SQUEeze to SQUish to SQUEAK TOY. Forgot that I had learned my definition of CULLS was wrong from a previous puzzle, I flirted with mULLS 'cause mH_ISTO just seemed environmentally friendly this morning, EWE know what I mean?
Mr. Silk seems to have been cooking with ASTERNo today and I like how it crossed STERNUM.
I hope this puzzle CULMINATEs in a great Saturday for all. Thanks, BCS, this was the BEES KNEEBENDS.
Quadruple play occurred in September 2010 with bases loade and force outs at all spots. One of the four outs carried over to the next inning. First time in 53 years
Quadruple play could happen if the bases are loaded, the batter swings for strike three, out #1, but the ball eludes the catcher. The base runners attempt to advance but the catcher tags the runner near home, out #2, throws to third, runner from second is tagged, out #3, and then one more runner is tagged for out #4.
More on the QUADRUPLEPLAY: bases loaded, no outs. Batter takes a mighty cut at a pitch but the ball drops weakly in fair ground at the batter's feet. Catcher picks up the ball, tags the plate (one out) tags batter ( two outs) then throws to first for a tag (third out). First baseman takes no chances and throws to second for a rundown (fourth out.) Batting team manager charges out of the bull pen claiming all four tags were missed. A review shows the first, second and fourth tags were legit, so the play is scored as a triple play. But! It was engaged as a quadruple play defensively to ensure 3 valid outs. That is, a QUADRUPLEPLAY is a defensive strategy, not a scored play.
That's my best guess . . . @Z?
Thx to @anon for the phantom fourth out scenario. Good one!
My expert solver buddy called this a medium SatPuz. He objected to OYES, but otherwise a normal puz for him.
I was surprised at how well the solve flowed for me since Silk puzzles are challenging. I grew up in the 60s so that helped. Agree with Rex that "drier" makes no sense, has no context. Finally getting "Robin" was a bit of a doh moment.
My favorite wrong answer was latex->TWEED. My second favorite wrong answer was rib cage->STERNUM
IPANA at 2D was a harbinger of WOES to come. That and NYNEX are both LFCs. At least I knew the Cyclades were on this planet and were islands, but I could only narrow it down to somewhere in the other hemisphere. OYES‽ And then THERE IS the lack of DECENCY exhibited by cluing something boring like THERE IS by some obscurity (my knowledge of 1960's Top 20 songs (not #1's) is not encyclopedic).
It looks to me like QUADRUPLE PLAY was the seed answer. I'm a bit of a baseball junkie and it sounded vaguely familiar. I found this. However, since the last two outs are force outs, the run doesn't score, so the scenario doesn't actually occur as described.
Bases loaded fly out with all baserunners advancing without tagging... if the second and third outs are made at first base and second base, the defense is allowed to make a "fourth" out at third base to prevent that runner from scoring. Otherwise the run would count if runner crossed home before the third out. I do not believe this has ever happened in MLB, but I've heard it has happened internationally.... and it has probably happened in youth baseball, but who knows how it was umpired.
SO many do-overs, too much time. Club/CUFF; first rate/FRONT PAGE; spillage/SPOILAGE; Boston (ref. 'club')/FENWAY; Mta/RTE; twill/TWEED. And, I'm sorry, but - OYES? Trends toward 'plain English' too far. It's a Z, for CHRIST's sake.
Almost wishing I'd had a dentist appointment instead. But good COFFEE can smooth even the roughest road. Lovely day to stay indoors and drink more. Hola, Joaquin!
Top half medium and bottom half tough. It was so tough that the whole thing was tough for me.
MINSK always evokes Rochelle, Rochelle.
kOng before TOTO.
Still not sure about the connection between "Password provision" and ENTRY. Google was no help.
I Married DORA was on for half a season and ended by breaking the fourth wall in spectacular fashion. It was a complete WOE for me. I'll take The Explorer version every time.
I thought I knew '60s rock and roll. Just played The Dells song "THERE IS"...nope.
Was looking for something like prohis (see Boardwalk Empire) for "Prohibition enforcer", RAIDER seems kinda dull.
Lots tougher and a bit more lively than yesterday's, like it!
The Supreme Court uses the word "oyez" the get people's attention to this day. But the puzzle spelled it wrong.
I could've sworn there was some kind of rebus going on for a minute because I was having trouble breaking it open. I was thinking SPOILed egg crossing faberge egg, and it took some time before realizing I was wrong. But that did add a lot of time because I kept looking for more rebus possibilities. Tough one though for sure
I Googled around for instances of quadruple plays, and there's some cute stuff, but most of them don't officially count as four outs. However, there's one instance I read that might actually work (I don't know if this has actually happened in real life, but it's easy to imagine that it could happen):
Player A is the batter
Player B is the runner on 1st
Player C is on 2nd
Player D is on 3rd
Player E is the 2nd baseman
With 0 outs and the bases loaded, Player A sends a line drive right at Player E. All runners take off on contact. Player E catches it (out 1). Player E then goes and tags Player B (out 2). Then he goes, and instead of touching 2nd base, he runs and tags Player C in no mans land (out 3).
The umpire notices, though, that Player D touched home before the tag was made on Player C.
When Player E chose to tag Player C instead of touching the base, he got into a what is defined by the rulebook as a rundown, meaning that run WOULD count. However, Player D left 3rd base before the ball was caught, meaning he needed to tag up back to 3rd base before scoring. But he didn't do this.
Therefore, Player E could then go and tag 3rd base to get Player D out (out 4).
It seems a little semantical, and it may not actually count as 4 outs. The umpires could just say that the run doesn't count, and the inning is over. But it's interesting, I guess.
OED:
2. A substance mixed with oil-paints, oils, inks, etc., to make them dry quickly.
1840 Penny Cycl. XVII. 145/2 To all paint a little sugar of lead, or litharge (dryers), should be added to make it dry quick.
1859 T. J. Gullick & J. Timbs Painting 208 All dryers..have in some degree a pernicious influence on colours.
1882 Encycl. Brit. XIV. 677/2 By slow degrees a proportion of ‘dryers’ is added [to linseed oil].
1940 Thorpe's Dict. Appl. Chem. (ed. 4) IV. 91/1 The modern method is to heat the oil by means of closed steam coils..while the driers are employed in the soluble form.
1951 R. Mayer Artist's Handbk. iii. 157 Driers or siccatives are metallic salts combined with materials such as oils or resins which mix with the usual paint and varnish ingredients.
1958 T. Landau Encycl. Librarianship 113/2 Drier, a substance used in printing inks to expedite drying by evaporation.
The obscurity of this is matched by the cluing of DORA as a show that went on almost thirty years ago, had low ratings, and got cancelled after half a season.
Usually it doesn't bother me that Will Shortz hasn't seen a movie since 1985, but today the clue for ROBIN rankled. It could be clued in a 1000 different ways, many of them equally as vague as this one. There was the terrible George Clooney movie, or a main character in How I Met Your Mother, or the damn bird. Why did we have to pick the Robin from 50 years ago?
Adding onto my previous comment about a theoretical quadruple play, I found an actual instance of when this ALMOST happened. But instead of it actually happening, it resulted in (probably) the only instance where a batter hit into a triple play, yet drove in the winning run. It happened in Cuba in the 1970s:
Tie game, bases loaded, no outs. Fly ball to right, which looked like it wouldn't be caught, so the runners on 1st and 2nd took off. But the outfielder, Wildredo Sanchez, made a remarkable catch (out 1). He got up and threw to second (out 2), and then the ball was thrown to first (out 3).
But here's where it gets fun. The runner originally on 3rd was smart. After the catch, he tagged up back to third, and then ran home, and crossed the plate BEFORE the third out was recorded. Since that third out was not a force out, the rule states that the run counts. There was an appeal, but ultimately the run was upheld, and the offensive team took the lead and won.
You could imagine a scenario where the 3rd base runner DIDN'T tag up, and the appeal resulted in the runner being called out. I suppose this could be considered a quadruple play as well.
@ Anon No way would an out carry over to the next inning. Cite your source.
OYES RARES his ugly head today. Phew, that word and about 10 others that I didn't know or just got wrong.
It started with DECorum and by gum, if I had the DECENCY, I might have finished this before bed-time...
My COFFEE gave me a RISE ergo misspelling QUADRiPLE PLAY and that Dells song was TEERE IS. I also had TACO for the "him" in that 1939 song. Ugh...
My last stupid mistake was penning in HAYRIDE and I started itching all over. The one and only ride I took on a bundle was full of fleas. I wanted to trichoptilosis on my bum something furious.
@Wreck...I too am enjoying the WSJ puzzles...Thanks for the reminder.
FIOS? I get AT&T.
I like SQUEAK TOY...but I would have added a Y at the end.
Off to enjoy the day. No rain (yet) but wishing @Hartley the very best on this special day....
My first reaction was: there is no toehold anywhere! Then I got in, via the NE: LSTS to LAP AT to AT IT (nice misleading clue). FRONT PAGE came in from the PA-- (by now I had STATE FLAG). And what a great misleading clue for FRONT PAGE, btw, though, because I'm a NY Times subscriber, I saw it early on.
At 54A was the best TOTO clue I've ever seen (and I've seen a great many, perhaps too many.) It took me a while to get COFFEE RUSH at 6D, even when I had COFFEE. Morning coffee doesn't give me anything resembling a RUSH; I'm lucky if it succeeds in prying my eyes open.
Bit by bit, I filled it almost all in, feeling so pleased with myself. But remaining was the wretched SE corner. I struggled and struggled, then finally gave up. I cheated, hence it's a DNF. I had SPLIT, but couldn't come up with any idea other than SPLIT lips, so I looked up the tricho clue at 32D. Once I had that, I was able to complete it, but it's still a DNF. A really great challenge.
@Karen..just got it. It's row , as in fight not row your boat
Interesting ruminations on the possibility of a QUADRUPLEPLAY. How about what I had in there at first? QUintUPLEPLAY
@Karen -- Re: AT IT for "in a row.". They both mean having a fight.
@Hartley70 -- Everyone else here seems to be wishing you rain for good luck. Not me. I'm wishing you an early end to the rain today, long before the festivities begin, and a rainbow over the water as the vows are being exchanged.
@DeeJay, a dropped third strike is a strikeout, but it isn't scored as an out. The catcher's tag on the batter is the unassisted put out.
Relatedly, a failure to tag or throw out the batter after a dropped 3rd strike puts the batter on first. That's how 4 strikeout innings can happen. Indeed, there is no upper limit to the number of strikeouts a pitcher can record in a game. There is a limit in the number of 4 strikeout innings a catcher can record in his (rather short) career.
N.B. Dropped 3rd strike applies when first base is open. When there is a runner on first, batter is out even if strike is dropped -- for the same reason the infield fly rule exists. This applies to strategic DTS swings at wild pitches, too, I believe.
Hah! We whupped this nasty Saturday puppy. Mrs. Mohair guided us through the OYEz trap by arguing that all Greek Islands seem to end in "S" (think LESBOS). We lost some time by thinking Hayride a gimme at 49A (Baleful affair), but the delightful SPLITENDS killed that one, and gave us HOEDOWN and NOBET - that which stymied Rex opened the difficult SE for us.
Disagree with a lot of @Rex's complaints here, thought this one was a lot of fun, liked the cluing, and had a ton of aha moments - not the least of which was 47A. The inclusion of the word "lore" made the baseball clue valid, proven so by anon 9:16's explanation.
Think Rex is wrong in complaining about 1a being too '60's - It's a Saturday clue, and Lee Harvey Oswald's past is more than just pop culture. On the other hand, we're '60's people and don't remember the Dells - tough one there.
Great clues, great Saturday challenge Barry Silk - thanks.
4 outs........
In a row (fight, squabble, argument)
They were going "at it".
@Karen --
Re: ATIT for "in a row."
"Row" here is tricky. Not, as in, "lined up" rhyming with the fies eggs "roe."
Rather, rhyme it with "how," and you get a word meaning
a fight or a squabble among two or more people. When this happens, they are "AT IT."
On another issue, I don't see how any of the above examples would be a quadruple play.
OYES is not that bad. ONO is a lot worse.
THERE IS plenty of DECENCY in this puzzle. What stood out for me was HOEDOWN, STALE JOKE, STATE FLAG, FRONT PAGE, TIGER'S EYE and COLOR WHEEL. However, caffeine rush, sugar rush, yes, COFFEE RUSH no, unless I must run out for a coffee but quick. And SQUEAK TOY has always been squeaky toy pour moi.
Thank you for not having a French phrase today. Well, except the bastardized OYES, LE CAR, and LA PAT. Avec plaisir.
A-STERN crossing STERN-UM, KNEEB ENDS and SPLIT ENDS -- how are these even allowed? What is a KNEEB anyway?
Jim Horne was nice enough to provide this excellent link describing the details of a hypothetical QUADRUPLE PLAY at xwordinfo.
Wail producer: SEX (if you are a cat).
I was going to post the HOEDOWN from Copland's "Rodeo" -- too rowdy for this rainy Saturday. Instead, let us listen to Victoria DELOS Angeles.
PS. The unsightly OYES could have been easily fixed: (Domine Iesu) CHRISTE | EYES or CHRISTA | AYES with multiple clue choices. Either one would have been a better choice in my view to avoid the variant of OYEZ, but the Bulgarian artist CHRISTO was obviously deemed by Messrs. Silk & Shortz to be worth it.
One is always hesitant to jump on a constructor for a puzzle that was a dnf for the critic. But, I think this was just awful. Quadruple play is just bad period. Even sussable answers like squeak toy are just wrong as they are/were known as squeaky toys. A-1 =front page? I mean, I get it but I think it is just sort of obscurely crappy. Then there is the matter of the way too many 60's clues, which is when I was a kid. Fios is a service offered by Verizon but not in Washington State, where I live. Thus, even tho I have Verizon cellular service and regularly get sales pitches for stuff from them, I had never heard of Fios until today. Just for good measure, I think Raider stinks as an answer for Prohibition enforcer.
@Karen
"At it" as in arguing or fighting; "in a row".
Generally a pleasurable puzzle for me; challenging, requiring effort, but no major stalls. Messed up the SW by misspelling SQUEeKTOY, ending up with ReInER in 40A. I had 57A as OYEz, too, so 41D was nENOz, which doesn't mean anything. Satisfied with getting most of an RP challenging Saturday in less than an hour.
Jake
To Karen -- "AT IT" (two words), as in going at it.
A drier is not an obscure reference in the painting world. Sometimes you want the medium to dry more quickly (so the next layer won't mix) and sometimes more slowly (so you can keep working what you've put on the surface). There are additives of various sorts for each (not to mention a hairdryer for watercolorists).
I thought a quadruple play can occur only on a dropped third strike (which counts as the first out) when the bases are loaded. I didn't know the fourth out cab carry over to the next inning.
Best, Evelyn
Even while I dnf in the NE and SE I enjoyed the challenge and feel pretty good about getting most of it.
I was sure ROBIN was ROwaN, partner of Martin. Did not get the dumb DORA and missed DRIER and, of course, NOBET.
I misremembered it as MeDOS , speaking of dumb, and thought it was NiNEX, thought Close-Up was an old TV show (ha ha) and wanted SeX for SAX (Hi, Karen!)
I really liked KNEEBENDS, SQUEAKYTOY, SNIPPET, IKNEWIT and COLORWHEEL.
OYES needed (Var.) in the clue.
Very tough, made me feel like a TWIT.
I thought parts of this puzzle played easy for Saturday. With the exception of that SE corner, and the Delos/oyes/ewe/trijet/raider/bit. Enjoyed the clue for MSDos.
Unusual puzzle for mr, complete agreement with Rex! Although ROBIN came with the _O_I_.
Re: QUADRUPLE PLAY bases loaded SCENARIOs. No. The outs are all still force outs. The 'Appeal Force Out" here would be a "fourth out," but officially only three outs are recorded. The Official MLB Rules (page 54) calls this "an apparent 'fourth' out" (emphasis added). You can also find video of "QUADRUPLE PLAYS." They are basically players who don't realize that the inning is over. And no, the extra out would not carry over to the next inning. I suspect that in the age of video review we will see more "better safe than sorry" "fourth outs" just in case outs are over-turned on review. I put "QUADRUPLE PLAY" in the same category as finding Jesus in your grilled cheese, i.e., it is mildly amusing to discover that people will believe just about anything.
OYEZ: a thing
OYES: not a thing
A bad one. Brand names galore, obscure useless trivia, annoying arcana. Overall, more annoying than entertaining.
I hated this puzzle. Usually I like Barry Silk's work but this one? Gag me. OYES might be a legit var. of OYEz but I ain't buyin' it. NYNEX? Never heard of it but then I'm from the west coast and had a whole bunch of other budding telephone companies to contend with. Just too regional for me but now we know, "We won't be foold again.".
Lots of cute explanations for the QUADRUPLE PLAY. This one seems the best to me: y'all should pay more attention to xwordinfo. Now I'll admit you have to be pretty familiar with baseball rules to get this but it makes the most sense to me.
NYNEX was my DNF downfall.
As a Chicagoan and a lover of vintage soul music, I found "THERE IS" to be one of the puzzle's few gimmes. "QUADRUPLE PLAY" looked pretty weird to me, but since it was the only thing that fit there, I went with it.
What flummoxed me, as usual, were those bloody names and brand names. I still don't know what a "LECAR" is, but I'm assuming it's a brand of automobile; those two side-by-side brand names (or three, if you count MS-DOS) in the NW absolutely stymied me; and I still have no idea what "Soul producer = KIA" is supposed to be about. (The Dells' hit "There Is," definitely "soul" music, was produced by Bobby Miller on the Cadet label --no help there!)
Sorry folks, but there is NO SUCH THING as a quadruple play. Three outs end the inning. No fourth out counts; it never occurred. No out carries forth to the next inning.
@rex -- With you word for word this morning, even though I skew a little older than you.
@loren -- Your note to M&A... priceless!
Like @Karen, was thinking SeX instead of SAX producing that wail. Two things that would have been cool: 1) ROBIN abutting HOED, and it would have been sweet if it abutted HOOD, and 2) BEES abutting KNEE, when it would have been perfect if it abutted KNEES.
The top was medium for me, and the bottom tough. Not knowing CHRISTO hurt, but it is always a perk to see TOTO in the grid.
OYEZ, OYEZ, OYEZ. Now that I have your attention, all I have to say about OYEs is oy vey!
This puzzle contains too many rotten words highlighted by Rex; E-W-E, the SPOILAGE is ripe.
What's the DEAL, BCS and WS? Even TOTO crossing SQUEAKTOY doesn't save this mess. Looking forward to a better Sunday.
Exact same complaints as Rex. Thought I had finished the SW but was feeling queasy about it because I had DOLOZ (IKNOWIT and OYEZ, both "reasonable" to me given the cluing, so I punted the Cyclades answer as being "make up a 5 letter crosswordese string"). I struggled with the SE but finally got it, though like Rex DRIER and ENTRY sure don't parse despite all the grammatical vectors I tried into their clues. So when I filled in the last square and it said that I wasn't done, I looked first at the SE but couldn't see anything wrong with it -- to the degree that I understood it. So I looked again at the SW and that awfully suspicious DOLOZ. It never even occurred to me that the longer answer might be past tense (IKNEWIT), I suppose that's on me but come on, this is a very minimal clue. But OYES? Maybe I need to read more but that seems like at least a (var.) of OYEZ, which I thought was standard and which is what I've always seen. Oh well.
I always finish Silk puzzles, but I was sure this one would be an exception. Three business names next to each other, MSDOS, Ipana, Nynex, obscure (to me) TV reference - Dora?? Never heard of "the Dells," started with Rowan of Rowan and Martin instead of Robin, and was really stymied in the SE. It broke when "Tweed" popped into my head. I don't understand our Leader's complaint about "Delos," a perfectly fine geographical clue for a Saturday.
What I find with Silk, Berry, and some of the other really fine constructors, is that despite my personal difficulties with pop-culture information, I almost never find a Natick. I might object to "quadruple play," but that was the only possible answer there. Nice Saturday workout. Thanks, Mr. Silk.
I DNF'd due to the SE. I stubbornly had Rowan (of Laugh-In fame), not ROBIN. And I never would have gotten RTE for anything Metro-connected. I was hoping it would be RER! If I *had* figured out ROBIN, NOBET would have been a gimme. In poker, a player who passes on the opportunity to bet "checks". I needed to Google for MINSK. And for a long time I had MacOS where MSDOS belongs. The rest started out hard, but ended up doable.
OYES is legit. If you ever visit the Supreme Court that's what the bailiff says before the first case on the docket is called. Sounds just like "Oh yes", However, it is *spelled* oyez.
A top-notch Saturday, I thought - very enjoyable to puzzle out, and satisfying to finish.
I agree with others that the SE was tough, especially with my Hayride and tonto-->RowaN and the Sahara as a Sedan (having been faked out by many a Sierra and Tornado, or whatever they are). Finally came up with ENTRY, SANDY, then DR?ER and ROBIN. Moment of shame: maya lin (because of "meetS") before CHRISTO, whom I revere.
I hope someday to remember LSTS - I always have to run through, "No, not LSATS, not LSD..."
May the SOTS enjoy their COFFEE RUSH.
@Rex: The problem with OYES is not that it is old timey. The problem is there is no such thing.
The lovely PuzEatinSpouse and I did battle with this SatPuz while at the local pancake house. Had no electronic devices along to do research on, which really forced us to focus on just plain seat-of-the-pants (sans under-ease 2G technology) solvin. Amazinly, we polished this sucker off, before the breakfast test arrived. Our rating: Eazier than snot with an azterizk*.
*Our azterizk: OYEZ/DELOZ. That Z was the final square filled, and we circled it, to make note of our bewilderment. Back home, our research dictionary confirmed that OYES is a perfectly good varmint version of OYEZ. So, learned somethin, there.
@Gill I. -- QUADRIPLEPLAY. har. Did U know that if a team hits into a QUADRUPLEPLAY, they have to start their next inning at bat with one out? And if U trust M&A on that, go ahead … pull my finger. Speakin of which ...
@muse: Day-um, darlin. 2-G technology.
Gee #1: One size fits all. I question the comfort index on that claim, for either yer very bony or yer trans-pleasinly-EIEIO-plump customers, depending on the design size.
Gee #2: Can be purchased with matchin vented trousers, to maintain that VW diesel look.
The question has to come up: do U recommend this product, from personal experience? Has it been tested on a mix of cinnamon rolls and vodka?
@009: dryer [also DRIER] dictionary def #2: a substance mixed with oil paint or ink to promote drying. They didn't mention the oil without the paint, tho. Not sure why U would want yer oil to dry up.
fave plural weeject of convenience: TES. fave word that could fool m&e if it were bogus: TRIJET.
5U's. Quintuple play. (yo, @cwf) (and E.T. Al)
Thanx, Mr. Silk.
M&A
@Seth - At least Wilfredo Sanchez is a real player. As for your SCENARIO, the run should not count because both runners are out on force outs. The source to this confusion seems to be that scenarists don't remember that if a runner doesn't tag up on a fly out the put out is forced. As to the game to which you refer, I can't find anything beyond Thomas Boswell recounted it. This columnist wasn't above listing Don Mattingly as a shortstop to make his prose work so I take his story with a grain of salt. If it did happen (and officials do make mistakes) the run was allowed in error.
@Alias Z - Horne's link is the same one I linked to. As I said earlier, Baseball-Reference's scenario is also in error for the same reason I mention in my earlier post and the paragraph above. That even a web site like Baseball-Reference gets this wrong tells you just how obtuse and obscure this is. Of course, this means the situation will occur in the World Series this year.
@LMS - See what you unleashed? (Just kidding - This is all on Silk/Shortz)
p.s.
27 out of 68 answers in this SatPuz have Patrick Berry NYTPuz Usage Immunity.
(TRIJET=yes. OYES=no.)
Thanx for this crucial info, @r.alph.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
DELOS was also the name of the amusement park or whatever it was in the "Westworld" movies.
Clue for OYES sorely needs a "var." qualifier.
QUADRUPLE PLAY could have referenced a different game, perhaps Scrabble, where two double word scores at once is indeed rare.
Wow! What fun caused here by the QUADRUPLEPLAY. Of course it can't exist in reality, but it sure does in lore (see about ten posts above) - so the clue is just fine. And @Z is probably right - we'll be seeing more of them as extra tags are being made to be "sure" in this age of video replay.
OYEs/OYEZ - Jeez, I'm so sure I've seen OYES used from time to time, although OYEz was my first guess too. Just checked an online dictionary and it says OYEZ or OYEs. We guessed the "s" because every Greek island we could think of ends in S. Surprised by all the noise here about this one.
Anybody else here visit CHRISTO's "The Gates" in Central Park a decade back? Thought the idea was a waste of time and money until I grudgingly got dragged on a trip through the park when it was completed. Turned a dull February day into a splash of brilliance. Something totally different. Really neat.
I hated, hated, hated this puzzle (pussle?, Silk's pretty free and easy with his esses and zees). I agree with every criticism. Plus, I'm not sure that "Okie" is not a pejoritive term. I liked yesterday's outing, and I know that Saturdays are supposed to be harder, but this was ridiculous; you gotta blame Shortz (Shorts?) unless this was the only submission, which I doubt.
Interestingly, my 1965 Webster's 3rd unabridged doesn't have trichoptilosis; is it a newish term?
Fred Romagnolo said... "trichoptiliosis: is it a newish term?" To which I automatically replied, (sad, isn't it?) "Funny, it doesn't LOOK newish..."
@ Mohair Sam - I visited the"Gates" several times. Best was after a snowstorm. I got gorgeous pictures of the "Gates" across the frozen lake.
@Fred - If OKIE was ever a pejoritive the song "I'm Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee" has usurped the negative. I have nephew-in-law from Muskogee and he calls himself nothing but an OKIE. And I think the horror of SPLITENDS was discovered by shampoo marketers circa 1972.
Three and out.
Dnf at IPANA/SEX, the latter causing the raising of an eyebrow.
Isn't it a SQUEAKyTOY, or a SQUEezeTOY? Figured it out, but doesn't sound right.
Loved clue for EWE...I had EyE at first, but with TIGERSEYE in the grid, smelled a rat.
My nit is with clue for LECAR. My first new car was a 1985 Rabbit GTi. I TORE up the roads with that beauty. $9,000 new, and I could blow past 911s in the esses at Lime Rock. (Sure, they blew me away I the straightaway, but anybody can go fast in a straight line...it's in the curves that the GTi came into its own... I unabashedly admit to many feelings of superiority at outperforming the guys and girls in the Porsches with my humble vw.)
No stock LECAR could do that...
Thanks Mr. Silk...I liked it.
I thought this was a pretty good 3/4-size puzzle, connected (barely) to two awful mini-puzzles. MINSK and DANTE (as clued) crossing IPANA and NYNEX (with any clue) was just mean-spirited.
Wow, wow, wow! I seem to be the odd man out here. I will never rate a Silky puzzle as easy, but I must have been riding in on Barry's coat tails. Didn't exactly sail through this one, but I found it easier than most are reporting. Fess up for looking up the DELLS hit, I am notoriously bad at remembering song titles. QUADRUPLE PLAY fit, so I left it and didn't think twice about it. Figured OYES was a var. and left it, again no further thought. I seldom question the puzzle, when I do I am usually wrong.
The only hang up I had was trying to be clever by putting IHOP in at 6A thinking sausage link. (Food on the brain, as per usual). Wanted SQUEAKY TOY til I ran out of room. Loved the TOTO clue.
Good one Mr. Silk.
What Dante said, loosely translated, is "He listens well who takes note." I.e., who pays attention to what is being said. "..who takes NOTES.." not only confused me, it is totally incorrect. But I do note (sic) that it is only the most recent example of the growth of functional illiteracy in this country which is gradually leaking even into the NYTimes, and, alas, into the crossword puzzles as well.
I loved this puzzle for one thing alone: 42D's correct usage of "rebus puzzle."
Tough to start, struggle to finish. Still got enough done to enjoy it.
Tough but satisfying puzzle. Good preparation for this evening's trivia night at One Star Cafe!
I ended with one mistake: oyer at 57 across. My mistake.
@Mohair and @Oisk -- I also visited CHRISTO's The Gates after a snowstorm. I'd been fully prepared to hate it. As a lover of Nature and Central Park, I thought it was the height of artistic hubris and a prime example of "gilding the lily" (the real quote, actually, is "paint the lily") on Christo's part. Do you improve on Nature by, gasp, shrouding it? But because the park was white and barren, without foliage or flowers, those cheerful orange gates really livened it up. They were playful and very graceful. I ended up loving the exhibit. (It should, of course, be mentioned that the bleakness of winter scenery generally depresses me, so this was the perfect antidote.)
Oh, and @Fred R -- I found your 2:55 comment a howl. Yours, too, @Ludy. It seems that OYES inspired a lot of witticisms today.
This was likely one of the easiest Saturdays ever for me - but I get Rex's comment about the generation gap....without MINSK, LECAR, etc. blockage would've been severe. QUADRUPLEPLAY is a real stretch because you can't record 4 outs in an inning, even though the passed ball strikeout, can in theory lead to 4 plays(3 outs) recorded - 2nd & 3rd no outs, batter K's (strikeout but no out), passed ball, runner at 3rd thrown out at the plate, team throws to 3rd trying to get 2nd base runner who (deer in the headlights) delays going to 3rd, gets by, this runner tries to score, gets thrown out at the plate, original batter meanwhile runs around bases, and say tries to take 3rd, then he too gets thrown out. 4 plays, 3 outs - I guess a QUADRUPLEPLAY
@teed/mn, I thought your BEES' KNEEBENDS were the cat's meOWLET, Momma.
Have to say the NW kind of made my teeth itch. The first run-through gave me only KNEEBENDS (marred by a quibble) and ONE'S ELF. The rest elicited nothing at all till the rest of the puzzle had whipped my brain into Saturday mode.
@MetroGnome, the SOUL is a car model manufactured by Kia; the fact that Kia is a Korean company slips in a little STALE JOKE. Just for balance, there's another automotive entry: Renault seemed to think LE CAR was a necessary hint,in case anyone mistook it for LE Breadbox, f'rinstance. I remembered it because LE CAR was what got me saying Ruh-nalt instead of Ruh-noh. Two money entries, also: THE REIS, Brazillion currency [if you think we have problems,just try imagining 2000% inflation] and the Russian QUADRUBLEPLAY. Since I wasn't burdened with an excess of baseball knowledge, I saved myself all kinds of time today not worrying about that.
OYES I said OYES I will OYES and I'll rejoice in my SQUEAKy TOY...
Overall, thought that this was a more raw Silk than usual, teetering between DECorum and DECENCY. You have to admit that SAXy SWEATER had rather ASTERNUM look ATIT.
Me, I just CULLS 'em the way I sees 'em.
Anybody out there remember Bucky Beaver of Ipana fame? And was I the only one who initially had MacOS instead of MSDos? There were Mac clones in the early 90s.
Maybe because I was born in the 40's and have traveled the Greek islands and don't know very much about baseball, I found this puzzle tough but doable. Stop whining, everybody. I never complain about the latest rapper and stuff like that!
Good,fun puzzle. RAIDER and LSTS are weak, though. DNF due to OYEs, but that's my own fault for not double-checkinh my downs. Never heard of DELOS, but I should have inferred it. IKNOWIT to me would not work for aha! as it's not a standalone phrase.
Verizon was created by merger of bell Atlantic and GTE, not Nynex,which still exists.
Bell Atlantic and GTE merged to form Verizon,not Nynex.
Sorry for late comments but still wanted to chime in on this puzzle, because I don't see as much complaining as I expected about the two answers that annoyed me the most:
COLORWHEEL: I had no idea this is related to use of "shades". Is this well known?
CULL: I know it as meaning "to selectively reduce" such as "culling a herd". Meaning seems too far away from the clue "Gathers"
I will, however, defend two other entries:
ROBIN (60's TV sidekick): although I wasn't around then, the 1960s era "Batman" TV show had a big cultural aftereffect. And Robin is one of the most famous fictional sidekicks anyway.
DELOS: I've never been there, but know that most Greek islands end in "OS", so entered those letters first. Then easy once I got the L from STALEJOKE, since DELOS was important both religiously (cult of Apollo) and politically (important part of Athenian empire).
I just finished. 700 Monday evening. But I finished. With no whining.
Supposedly there was a quadruple play in a White Sox-Royals game in September 2010. The scenario makes sense, but I can't find much corroboration of it. The fourth out was carried over into the next inning.
http://bottomofthefourth.blogspot.com/2010/09/white-sox-pull-off-rare-quadruple-play.html
Also: "Oyes" and "No bet" are just sloppy, lazy clue concoction.
@Rick Schindler - Sigh. Too bad the Royals played the Tigers the night they hit into a quadruple play against the White Sox. Tell you what, send me $1,000 and I will forward your Nigerian inheritance forthwith.
I have stared bleary-eyed at puzzles before, despaired of ever getting a foothold, persevered, and finally triumphed. But never have I come so close to quitting as today. I had stuck in TOTO but nothing else in the SW. I had a little southern "soul patch" with -JOKE, -JET, and -EEL spoking out to who-knew-what. Added HOEDOWN and the inferred W to -HEEL. Then just stared. I didn't know anything else, and 3/4 of the clues made NO SENSE WHATSOEVER to me. I thought about Googling, which I never do; it would be easy enough to get a couple things like the WS venue, etc. Nah, the hell with iy, this'll be a DNF.
Then I thought about a COLORWHEEL; that has "shades," eh? This led to SCENARIO...and the whole thing somehow opened up. I was bothered by SQUEAKTOY; wasn't there another "Y" in there? And though QUADRUPLEPLAY was the now-obvious answer, I object to the clue. (ALL the clues were definitely Saturday-level, but this one! Yikes!) "Super-rare" means the event actually happened, surely fewer than, say, five times. But this event exists only in SCENARIOs: hypothetical situations. No way can there factually occur a quadruple play. BTW, I have NEVER understood, and don't think I could ever be MADE to understand, why that idiotic rule exists about a dropped third strike enabling the batter to advance. Three strikes and you're out, mister, go take a seat.
Some places I came to on this newly-opened journey caused headslaps: FENWAY: DUH!! SALEM, of course! etc. Other places, like the stubborn NW, not so much. That was the last to fall. Couldn't 1-across have been clued some other way? That's the first thing I saw, and it left a bad taste, as of SPOILAGE. We do NOT need to glorify this idiot's name any further. Last letter was the T of NYNET and...SAT??? What does "wail" have to do with...oh, wait. A SAX! That wails, and I guess NYNEX was a thing. So a single letter writeover at the very end, and done! Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat always makes for a high mark, but I really wanted that squeaky toy. A-.
But what is FIOS?
My biggest problem with this puz was spilling my Red Bull on it and having ink leech all over. Shoulda waited until it was DRIER. And then there’s the continuing lack of yeah babies.
No prob with OYES as I have seen it that way and entered it as such.
They may call it a Q-PLAY, but it really isn’t. And no possible carry-over to the next inning. The only way to start an inning with one out is if there are no players remaining (because of injury, ejection, etc.) to fill in the lineup spot for the first batter that inning.
I liked this Sat-puz, but did not find it as smooth as Barry’s usual Silk.
Oh yeah, SPLITENDS are what they (we) used to call wide receivers.
I think the keyword we need to highlight in this clue is "lore". To me, it's similar to telling incoming freshman that there's a pool on the roof of the high school. It's just barely believable enough to be intriguing and perhaps the customary welcome to the new guy. In regards to the possibility of a quadruple play, I see it more likely that the fly ball is caught in the outfield, 2 base runners caught trying to tag up, and 1 who failed to tag the base prior to advancing. Like you said though, not sure if the base running error would technically count as the 4th out.
Best. Analogy. Ever. Lol!
STALEJOKE DECENCY
OYES, THEREIS a SCENARIO about SPOILAGE,
ALAS, EWE know MI6 DEALs with a bad egg,
IKNEWIT was a SPYON the FRONTPAGE,
the SNIPPET was about ASTERN Daniel Craig.
--- DORA ROBIN TWEED
I wondered if anyone would catch that.
Once again, late to the puzzle and late to the comments. This was a tale of 2 puzzles for me: pretty easy North half (except for FIOS. What IS that?), and brutal South half. Many long staring sessions, many false starts and writeovers and wtf's. Eventually, I had to accept DRIER (in oil, really?) and the S on the end of OYES, because many Greek islands end in OS.
Overall, I think this was a good puzzle with devilish cluing, and it seems a feat to have limped in with a correct solution.
I'm late, of course, because. evidently, I'm not ready for prime time on really difficult Saturday puzzles.
I'll limit myself to just two destroyers:
QUADRUPLEPLAY, which had ramifications for the whole puzzle. I'm a baseball fan, and this term is alien, even absurd to me. But the statisticians of the sport undoubtedly know of it.
EWE, very clever clue that was just beyond my reach.
Live and learn.
I believe the DRIER to be in oil paints - thus "oils".
Today's cross. The problelm you had with spelling of oye was that you were thinking in English, but it makes perfect sense in Spanish where it means "listen up" or even "Hey there." (second person familiar, command.) I didn't even notice the spelling problem as I'm surrounded by Spanish speakers here in SoCal. The come-t-order cry in English Courts of course is Oyez. Maybe the crossword author thought in Spanish but forgot to tell us. : )
Terry DeFarge
I've been through the quadruple play scenario with a variety of umpiring instructors, and they agree on one simple principle:
There *are* more than three outs in an inning in the official scorebook when (1) three "normal" outs have been executed; (2) an appeal afterward is upheld, and invalidates a run scored. In such a case, the official scorer credits the three outs achieved in active play (all fielders get their assist and put-out statistics), and then the official scorer records the appeal out. The player who acts on the appeal gets credit for a put-out, as well.
Theoretically, this could result in six outs in an inning.
The issue here is a quadruple play. Since four offensive players are to be thrown out on the play, we have the bases loaded with no outs. Runners are Able on third, Baker on second, Charlie on first, and Dolton batting.
Dolton belts a long ball to the outfield. All three runners come around, but fail to tag home plate. However, they wait past the home-plate area as Dolton rounds the bases, trying for an inside-the-park home run. The centerfielder catches up to the ball, throws to home plate, where the catcher tags out Dolton. The catcher then also tags the three runners (who have presumably scored). Catcher appeals to the umpire, who upholds the appeal.
The official scorebook will show a 8-2 putout on Dolton, then three outs (credited to the catcher) to nullify the three runs. The inning is over. No outs carry over to the next inning. It's a quadruple play.
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For added trivialities, consider the case in which the play would normally be a long single that scores one or two runs. However, the center fielder bobbles the ball and then fires his throw to the plate well over the catcher's head. The ball rolls to the backstop as Charlie and Dolton continue to round the bases. The catcher chases down the ball and returns just in time to tag out Dolton at the plate. Then catcher appeals and the other three outs are effected as above.
Since the error breaks the flow of contribution to Dolton's out, the catcher gets sole credit for all: an unassisted quadruple play.
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Finally, consider this same scenario, but starting with two outs. IN this case, the quadruple play is still scored as above, and the official scorebook shows six outs for the half-inning.
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