Alec Bohm’s dinger last night in the Phils’ 7-0 drubbing of the Astros was the 1,000th HR in World Series history. The first was by Jimmy Sebring of the Pirates off of Cy Young (!), pitching for Boston on Oct. 1, 1903. Sebring’s was an inside-the-park job dissed by the Boston press as “a weak fly,” while the Pittsburgh papers said Sebring “sent the ball to deep center.” Here’s a shot of Sebring, taken when he was with Cincy.

Willie Mays, Ted Williams, and Ken Griffey, Jr., never hit WS home runs. “Home Run” Baker and Shoeless Joe Jackson, hit Nos. 10 and 29, respectively. Baker earned his nickname by leading the AL in homers 4 times, twice by as few as 9 and 12, during the dead ball era (duh). Shoeless Joe hit his WS HR during the scandal-marred 1919 Series. Casey Stengel hit the first WS homer at Yankee Stadium in 1923 (No. 39) while playing for the Giants. The most improbable WS HR was hit by Jose Santiago (No. 401) for the Bosox off of the great Bob Gibson of the Cards in 1967. Santiago was a pitcher and hit only one regular season homer in his career. (Gibson homered himself in the Cards’ series-winning Game 7. So there.)

Announcer Bob Costas tells a wonderful Bob Gibson story (Hi Joe!). In the last game he ever pitched, Gibson surrendered a grand slam HR to Pete LaCock (son of Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall, btw). Ten years later, with both of them retired, LaCock was participating in an Old Timer’s game and Gibson took the mound and drilled him with a fastball. Costas went up to Gibson after the game and said “I can’t believe you did that.” Gibson replied: “Robert, the scales must be balanced.”

Did someone mention Hollywood Squares? Paul Lynde was everyone’s favorite “square,” although George Gobel (below) was a close second in my book. Lynde was once asked “Do guinea pigs whistle?,” and he answered “Only when brought to a boil.” Gobel was once asked “When your grandfather put oatmeal on his forehead, what was he trying to do?,” and he answered “Get it in his mouth.”

Today’s puzzle was a masterpiece of construction. Kudos to Ethan Zou and Tomas Spiers. The theme was BOXER, clued with a groaner as “One serving punch,” but it was supposed to be parsed as BOX “ER,” with the letters ER sharing one square (box) 12 times in the grid. The symmetry was lovely: The ER appeared 3 times each in 4 long answers — two across and two down, loosely forming a “box.” My favorites were ROGER FEDERER and WE’RE OVER HERE. The others were BORDER TERRIER and FERRERO ROCHER. Each of the 12 ERs also worked with the crossing answer, e.g., “Two-thirds of 100,” was ZEROS.

There’s more. The answer BOXER, in its fighting connotation, crossed BLOODY NOSE (28D). If you’d prefer to think of the canine BOXER, the puzzle also contained a BASSET hound (45D), and the aforementioned BORDER TERRIER. Or how about BOXER as an item of underwear? There was 10D — BRIEFS, clued as “Intimate apparel in many lawyer puns.” Impressive? — OH HELL YEAH!, clued as “Amen!” at 8D.

The word BOOP appeared at 22D, clued without resort to Betty, as “Cutesy sound that may accompany a poke.” LMS pictured the poke being given to a good-natured pup, and it brought to mind for her the words “floof” and “sploot.” These are actual words. Floof means fluffy pet, and sploot is when a dog or cat flattens himself on his belly with his back legs splayed out.

Last (on the puzzle), WE’RE OVER HERE inspired the sharing of the following tweet: “My favorite thing is when I’m in a park and I see someone answer their phone and stand up. They’re like ‘OK, we’re by the tree. No, it’s like a big tree. OK, I’m wearing jeans and a grey — oh, I see you! — do you see me? I’m waving. OK, do you see me now?’ I could watch people do this for hours.”

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Today is the birthday of Marie Antoinette, born in 1775. And, how’s this for the Mandela Effect? She never said “Let them eat cake.” That was written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and he was describing a different queen, Marie-Therese of Spain. It was also attributed, years later, to the Pillsbury Doughboy.