Kudos to the World Champion Dodgers. They were clearly the better team. Some weird stuff happened this year. Yankee catcher Austin Wells was called for catcher’s interference last night and Ohtani was awarded first base. It’s called when the catcher’s mitt comes in contact with the bat. As long as the batter is in the batter’s box, it’s the catcher’s obligation to avoid the contact.

In an earlier game, a caught ball was carried into the stands by an outfielder, resulting in the runners being awarded a base. Again, it was Ohtani who was up. He hit a foul pop-up to short left field. Verdugo made an excellent catch in foul territory on the playing field and his momentum carried him into the stands. He flipped over but held onto the ball, so Ohtani was out. But since Verdugo caught the ball on the field and carried it out of bounds, the runners on first and second were each automatically advanced. Had Verdugo reached into the stands to make the catch, there would have been no advance.

Did the Dodgers win, or was it more a case of the Yankees losing? Well, LA deserved the win. Freddie Freeman was sensational and their pitching was better than NY’s. But Judge’s choking and the team’s general poor play did more to undo the New Yorkers. Take a look at this key moment from last night’s game. Unthinkable.

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This was in Frank Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature this week:

In The New Yorker, Ben Tarnoff recalled an analog past: “I belong to the last generation of Americans who grew up without the internet in our pocket. We went online, but also, miraculously, we went offline.” He conceded disadvantages to that: “We got lost a lot. We were frequently bored. Factual disputes could not be resolved by consulting Wikipedia on our phones; people remained wrong for hours, even days. But our lives also had a certain specificity. Stoned on a city bus, stumbling through a forest, swaying in a crowded punk club, we were never anywhere other than where we were.”

This poem by Marge Piercy is called “October nor’easter” and was in today’s Writer’s Almanac.

Leaves rip from the trees
still green as rain scuds
off the ocean in broad grey
scimitars of water hard
as granite pebbles flung
in my face.

Sometimes my days are torn
from the calendar,
hardly touched and gone,
like leaves too fresh
still to fall littering
sodden on the bricks.

But I have had them—
torrents of days. Who
am I to complain they
shorten? I used them
hard, wore them out
and down, grabbed

at what chance offered.
If I stand stripped
and bare, my bones
still shine like opals
where love rubbed sweetly,
hard, against them.

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Baseball fans will not be surprised to learn that Stan Musial had 3,630 lifetime hits: a number befitting a great Hall of Fame hitter. But did you know he had exactly half (1,815) at home and half on the road? Pretty neat, eh? I learned that in an article noting that Will Smith has won five World Series in a row, starting in 2020 and running through this year. What? Who? No way! Well, it’s sort of a trick question. A person named Will Smith has won five WS in a row, but there are two different Will Smiths. Catcher Will Smith on the Dodgers won with them this year and back in 2020. And there’s a lefty relief pitcher also named Will Smith who won with Atlanta in 2021, Houston in 2022, and Texas last year.

Here’s the one who won last night, with his pretty wife Cara.

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The puzzle was a perfect paean to the day: Halloween. The theme revealer in the center was the old classic MONSTER MASH. Then in each quadrant a different monster was “mashed” into a single square. E.g., at 4D the clue was “Othello role,” and the answer had only five letters. Turned out to be DES[DEMON]A with the demon squished into one square. It was crossed by 20A with the clue “June observance” for PRI[DE MON]TH. See the demon in there? The other three monsters that were similarly employed were OGRE, TROLL, and GOLEM.

One of the co-constructors was Paolo Pasco, who’s great. At 56A, the clue was “Opposite of a jumbo shake?” Answer: TREMOR. At 33A, for the clue “Pigeonry” the answer was COTE. Here’s Rex on it: — “I love the word ‘pigeonry.’ Sounds like the shenanigans that pigeons get up to. You know? Flying. Cooing. Pooping on statues. Your basic pigeonry.”

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Political headlines from The Onion:

New Trump Ad Shows Montage Of People He’d Kill If Elected

New Indiana Law Requires Women Voters To Show Husband’s ID

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Tired. Fading. See you next time.