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There was a rare sighting of the elusive Shiny-Eared Musgrove in Queens last night, much to the consternation of the hapless Mets, who fell out of the playoffs with a thud much earlier than predicted. Joe Musgrove, starting pitcher for the San Diego Padres, was pitching a hell of a game. While his mates were battering Mets pitchers, Musgrove was mowing down Mets batters right and left, yielding only one hit, a single, over his seven innings. The Mets knew he was good, but not that good, and they suspected he was “doctoring the ball with a foreign substance,” as the expression goes. Was he hiding some sort of gel somewhere that he was applying to the ball to increase the spin and effectiveness of his pitches? The twittersphere was bombinating with speculation — particularly over Musgrove’s ears which did seem unusually shiny. What the hell was up with those shiny ears? So Mets Manager Buck Showalter asked the umps to search Musgrove for goop! Play was stopped and the umps gathered around the mound for the baseball equivalent of a pre-incarceration strip search. They checked his glove and hat, and then they felt all around both of his shiny ears. Nothing was found. I guess the man just has shiny ears.

Wait till next year, Mets fans.

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Today’s puzzle includes dogs or cats that are MALTESES, clued as: “White dogs, or bluish-gray cats.” It inspired a poster (LMS) on the Rex Parker blog to pen an Ogden Nash-ish verse, addressed to an allergy-sufferer:

The solution if you sneeze and wheeze is
Give away your two Malteses.

LMS has a wonderful way of letting us know she learned something new. She says: “I was today old when I learned. . .”

What she learned today related to the clue “Happy as __,” with the answer: A CLAM. (Monday puzzles are easy.) It turns out the full expression is “Happy as a clam in high water.” When the tide is out clams are at risk from clam-digging humans or birds, so they are “happy” in protective high water. If you google “depressed clams” you will find several fake “scientific” papers debunking the notion that clams are happy, and establishing that they are in fact depressed, especially the Jewish ones with teenaged children. (I made that last (Jewish) part up.)

One thing some puzzle people (cruciverbalists) like to do is find neat associations that appear in a puzzle’s grid, either unintentionally or by design of the constructor. Today for example FOODIE at 37A crosses CHEAP WINE at 12D. And, ironically, for me, whose parking skills have eroded precipitously since moving to Jersey from Brooklyn several hundred years ago, PARALLEL PARKING at 39A crosses EASY PEASY at 34D. Hardly.

Here’s what LMS has to say about it:

“Most of the time when you parallel park you have two audiences: the first are the people at the sidewalk café casually enjoying your humiliation over their wine. The second are the line of cars you’re holding up as you re-angle your car, three, four, five times. Nah. I’ll just park a half mile away and hoof it.”

Another thing I like to do, per Rex himself, is look at the very first clue/answer: 1 across, to see what tone it sets as an introduction to the puzzle. That’s where many solvers start. (Although many also start elsewhere, and many think it’s ridiculous to grant special significance to 1 across.) I’m with Rex here and was happy to see that 1 across today is: “Fusses in front of the mirror, say.” I wrote in PREENS, but soon saw it should be PRIMPS. A great first word — having primped sufficiently, I was ready to start the journey. Several days ago, 1 across was IN A COMA. I can relate to that.

BTW, how do you describe someone who uses way too many commas? COMMATOSE!

Several folks didn’t like the word INANER, for “More ludicrous.” It is clunky. One poster noted: There is nothing more INANE than INANER! And someone else replied: What about INANEST?

I was today old when I learned that the seeds of a PAPAYA are “highly nutritious,” according to the clue. (I wonder if a crossword puzzle has ever been cited as authority for something. Nah.) I bet you’ve just been throwing your papaya seeds away, right? They are an anti-oxidant, help with weight control, cholesterol, and a whole bunch of other stuff. You can get them in supplement form.

Some folks pore over a puzzle like Rabbis with the Talmud (which, incidentally, was an answer in yesterday’s puzzle, clued as “Temple text”). In case you had any doubt that it can get insane, check this out:

“Today’s puzzle set a new record for the most appearances of the letter P in a 15 x 15 NYT puzzle, with 20. Walden [the constructor] also holds the record (in a tie) for most appearances of the letter N, at 26. And he is in 5th place for most appearances of the letter O, although his total of 31 pales in comparison to the leader at 69.”

Noted. Thank you.

I’ll let myself out now. Don’t get up.