The Wellington Files

The Banana Bread, A True Story

Years ago, when Sam was a sophomore at Michigan, I was in my kitchen one day, in the produce department. That’s where we keep the fruits and vegetables that don’t need refrigeration. You know, potatoes, onions, etc., . . . and bananas. And I noticed that the bananas, which just a day earlier had seemed fine, had turned against me overnight. They weren’t so bad that I had to throw them out. They were in that middle zone, where they could still be used to make banana bread. And there were enough of them that I would have to make two banana breads.

Just then, a wave of sorrow ran over me, because Sam, who loves my banana bread, had just been visiting from Michigan. I could have given him one of the breads to take back with him. And then “Boing!,” the light bulb went on over my head — I could mail him one!

So I ran down to the basement where we keep our boxes for recycling to find a good box to send it in. Alas, there was nothing. They were all either way too big or way too small. So I trudged back upstairs, defeated, figuring that God just didn’t want Sam to have a banana bread.

At that point, I heard the crunch of tires on our driveway — it was my lovely bride Linda returning from a shopping trip to Costco. Pretending to be a good husband, I went outside to help her unload. One of the items she purchased was a box of Fiber Bars, 48. They were new to us, so I asked her what the story was. She said they were giving out free samples and they tasted okay so she thought they might be a good healthy snack. I said, fine, and went to put them on a pantry shelf.

And then it hit me. I grabbed the box of fiber bars, tore it open, and dumped all of the bars out onto the table. “What are you doing?,” Linda asked. I told her I had to bake several banana breads and wanted to send one out to Sam and the fiber bar box was the perfect size to send it in.

So God did want Sam to have one after all!

I baked the banana breads. They turned out fine. I let them cool, then wrapped one up and placed it in the fiber bar box. It was a perfect fit. I addressed it to Sam and ran down to the Post Office. “How much would it cost to send this to Michigan?,” I asked the woman. She punched things into her machine and said, “We can get it there by tomorrow afternoon for $32.65.” I looked at her and said, “It’s a banana bread. He could buy five of them out there for that much money. Is there a less expensive option?” She said, “Well, it can go Parcel Post for just $3.85. It will take 2 or 3 days to get there.” Perfect! I paid for the postage and ran back home to send Sam an email. I told him what I had done and to expect the package in 2 to 3 days. Then I sat back and spent the rest of the day enjoying the thought that I was good dad.

Two days later, I called Sam up. He told me it hadn’t come. No problem — the woman said 2 to 3 days, so he should be on the lookout tomorrow. I told him to check where the packages came, not just the smaller mail. He assured me he was on top of it. He had stopped by the mailroom and introduced himself and explained the situation. They were nice guys and they were all on the lookout for the banana bread. Excellent! It would surely come the next day. I wasn’t at all worried.

I called him the next day.

“Dad, it hasn’t come,” he told me.
“But it’s the third day,” I said. “The woman said 2 to 3 days, and this is the third day.”
“I know, but it hasn’t come.”
“But this is the third day.”
“I know but it hasn’t come.”
“Okay, well, it will definitely come tomorrow.”
“Yes, definitely.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Of course not. Neither am I.”

I was expecting him to call me the next day when it came. He didn’t call, but I figured he probably had classes, maybe even a test, and other college stuff to do. I was sure it came, and he was planning to call me later. But he didn’t call me later, so I called him.

He didn’t even say hello. He just picked up the phone and said “It still hasn’t come, Dad.”

I said, “Damn that woman at the Post Office!! I’ll strangle her!! She said 2 to 3 days!! 2 to 3 days, and this is the 4th day!! No wonder the country is going to shit — they can’t even deliver a goddamn banana bread!! It may not be fresh when it gets there.”

“I guess it’ll come tomorrow,” Sam said.
“Yes,” I said, “Let’s hope it’s still fresh enough to enjoy.”

I couldn’t sleep that night worried about the banana bread. Big bags formed under my eyes which were glazed from lack of sleep. I started chain smoking. I cancelled my classes the next day, and just sat at home waiting to hear from Sam. I decided not to call him that day, no matter what. If it came, he’ll call me. I’ll just tough it out. But the call never came and I faced another sleepless night. It would be Day 6 when the sun rose, and still no banana bread.

I stared blankly into space for hours. Finally, I picked up the phone and called Sam again. “Has it come yet?” I could barely talk at this point, from the stress and the cigarettes, and the lack of sleep. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dad — it still hasn’t come.” I was beside myself with grief and rage.

“Really? Are you absolutely sure?,” I asked him.

And then he said. “Yes, I’m sure. The only thing I’ve gotten all week was this box of fiber bars Mom must have sent me. They look so awful I didn’t even open them.”

I slumped down to the floor, tears streaming down my face. “That’s the banana bread, Sam!! Open the damn thing!”

Well, the good news is it was still fresh enough to enjoy. He shared it with his buddies — They all said it was delicious!

---

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

Combine:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 tsp salt
2 and 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 to 2/3 cup sugar

Combine separately:

2 eggs
2 large (or 3 small) mashed bananas
1/3 cup oil or butter
1/4 cup milk

Shmush it all together

Optional:

Stir in 1 cup blueberries (frozen or fresh) — strongly recommended
Or raisins, chopped walnuts, mini chocolate chips

(Add more milk if the batter is too thick.)

Pour it all into an oiled loaf pan.

Bake for 52 or 53 minutes.
Test with an official Dusty Baker toothpick.

Let cool.
Mail to Sam.

A Jewish sports figure and an Israeli sports figure are in the news this week.  Last year’s World Series hero Max Fried is a finalist for this year’s NL Cy Young award.  And Israeli marathon runner Lonah Chemtai Salpeter finished second in the NYC Marathon among the women.  Her time of 2:23:30 was only seven seconds behind the winner, Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi.  She finished nine seconds ahead of the reigning world champ, Ethiopia’s Gotytom Gebreslase.  Any of these names would strike terror in the heart of a crossword solver, but I don’t think they are well-known enough to make it into a grid.  Well, maybe on a Saturday or in some non-NYT bone-crusher.  (Ai Weiwei made it in though, as discussed below. Any of you heard of him?)

Here’s a shot of Lonah.  You may notice that she doesn’t look Jewish.  She was born in Kenya (you know, like Obama), and came to Israel in ’09 as the nanny for the Kenyan ambassador.  She married her running coach Dan Salpeter in ’14. They have a son Roy (8).  After being rebuffed by the government repeatedly (idiots!), she became an Israeli citizen in ’16.  Among her many accomplishments, she won the 2020 Tokyo Marathon, breaking the world record for the course.  

Today’s puzzle had a theme of “eye openers,” i.e., four long answers started with homonyms of “eye.” I, CLAUDIUS; AYE CAPTAIN; AY CARAMBA; and “Award-winning Chinese artist/activist” AI WEIWEI.

It was that last one that opened the tiny door for me. I hadn’t heard of WEIWEI, but I should have. As an activist he has been critical of China’s human rights abuses for decades and was arrested and detained for 81 days in 2011. He uses his art to comment on social and political issues. He was allowed to leave China in 2015 and lives in Portugal now. He is 65.

He lived in the U.S. from ’81 to ’93 and befriended poet Allen Ginsberg, who later visited Weiwei in China and met his father, Ai Qing, also a noted poet. While in the U.S. he became fascinated by blackjack in the Atlantic City casinos, and is still regarded in gambling circles as a top-tier professional blackjack player.

Weiwei’s “Sunflower Seeds” was first exhibited in the Tate Modern gallery in London for half a year starting in October, 2010. The work consisted of one hundred million individually hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds which filled the gallery’s 1,000 square meter Turbine Hall to a depth of ten centimeters. The entire artwork weighed 150 tons. Each seed went through a 30-step procedure, hand painted and fired at 1,300 degrees. This process required more than 1,600 workers over a span of two and a half years.

The millions of individually created seeds spread across such a wide space are meant to symbolize the vastness of China, and its uniform and precise order. An individual seed is instantly lost among the millions, symbolizing the conformity and censorship of the Chinese Communist Party. The combination of all the seeds represent that together, the people of China can stand up and overthrow the Party. For a time, the gallery allowed visitors to interact with the installation. In the photo, below, the visitors are engaging with the seeds.

***************

Got my second booster shot yesterday. Not too bad. I was able to go in to teach my classes today. Big tax test coming up next Tuesday. Judgment Day.

One of the clues in yesterday’s puzzle was “Unlike Pi.” (It printed the Pi sign (π).) And since Pi is an irrational number, the answer was RATIONAL. As we all remember from third grade, Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It works out to 3.14159, give or take. It is an irrational number, meaning that it cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction (a ratio of two integers), although 22/7 is commonly used for it. (A more accurate approximation in fraction form is 245850922/78256679.) Because of this, its decimal representation never ends (i.e., it goes on forever), nor does it enter a permanently repeating pattern. OK, back to English.

“Piphilology” is the practice of memorizing large numbers of digits of π, and world records are kept by Guinness. The record for memorizing digits of π is 70,000 digits, recited in India by Rajveer Meena in 9 hours and 27 minutes on 3/21/2015. In 2006, Akira Haraguchi, a retired Japanese engineer, claimed to have recited 100,000 decimal places, but the claim was not verified by Guinness. To be honest, I’m pretty full of myself just for remembering 3.14159. (F**king nailed it!)

One common technique (“common?” really?), is to memorize a story or poem in which the word-lengths represent the digits of π: The first word has three letters, the second word has one, the third has four, the fourth has one, the fifth has five, and so on. An early example of such a mnemonic for pi, originally devised by English scientist James Jeans, is “How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.” When a poem is used, it is sometimes referred to as a “piem.”

A few authors have used the digits of π to establish a new form of “constrained writing,” where the word lengths are required to represent the digits of π. The “Cadaeic Cadenza,” a short story by Mike Keith, contains the first 3835 digits of π in this manner. Even more amazing, the full-length book “Not a Wake,” also by Mike Keith, contains 10,000 words, each representing one digit of π. That book is a collection of poetry, short stories, a play, a movie script, crossword puzzles and other surprises.

Since Pi begins 3.14, the date March 14 (3/14) is called Pi Day by some. A recent puzzle had the clue “What comes before the Ides of March?” Since the Ides of March falls on March 15, the answer it was looking for was PI DAY.

If your head hasn’t exploded yet, how about this? — Albert Einstein’s birthday is March 14th (1879).

---

Today’s puzzle had a clue “Extra amount for a waiter,” and the answer was TIP. It led to a discussion of tipping “philosophies” among the commentariat, too boring even for this blog. But I couldn’t let this comment go: “Another plus when I started bartending was that our TIP income was tax free. We just paid taxes on our hourly wages. That changed when they started to tax the estimated TIP income based on the total $ amount of sales.”

But tipping was always includable in gross income (i.e, not tax-free). It’s just that there used to be no reporting mechanism alerting the IRS to it, so waitpeople never reported it. As my old tax prof used to say (Dean Bernard Wolfman, alav hashalom), the Code provision on gross income was written by Gertrude Stein: “Income is income is income.” Even if you find money on the street you are supposed to report it, if you want to file an honest return.

Did someone mention waiters? Here’s a joke told to me years ago by my dear friend Roy (Hi Roy and Pam!). It’s so wonderfully ridiculous, it’s always been a favorite of mine.

This guy is dining by himself in a nice restaurant and just when he’s ready to order, the waiter appears and takes his order. His drink arrives promptly, and just when he’s ready for his salad, it arrives as well, as does his soup shortly thereafter. He’s impressed by the service, even more so when he dropped his soup spoon and, within seconds, his waiter arrived with another spoon.

He says to the waiter, “I must tell you, I’m very impressed with the service here. How in the world did you get that soup spoon to me so quickly?” And the waiter explained that the restaurant owners commissioned a study by an efficiency consultant to see how they could improve their service. And one of the things the study discovered was that the most frequently dropped utensil was the soup spoon. So every waiter keeps an extra one in his jacket pocket.

“That’s brilliant,” the customer says. “I’m very impressed.”

A short while later, he noticed that the waiter had a white string hanging down from his fly. At first he thought it was just random, but then he noticed that every waiter had one.

“Excuse me,” he asked. “I notice that you and all the waiters have a string hanging down from your fly. What’s that about?”

“Oh yes,” the waiter explained. “That was another suggestion of the efficiency people. They found that time was lost when we went to the bathroom to relieve ourselves. Since we touched our penises to take them out of our pants, we had to wash our hands which took time. So, now, we each have this string tied to it — so we just pull on the string to take it out, never touch ourselves, and we don’t have to wash our hands.”

“Brilliant!,” the customer said. “Very impressive.”

But after thinking about it for a bit, he called the waiter back over. “I just have one more question,” he said. “When you’re done, how do you get it back into your pants?”

And the waiter said, “I don’t know about the other fellows, but I usually use my spoon.”

I wouldn’t have brought in Alvarado, but what do I know? I used to enjoy an announcer for the Nats named FP Santangelo, former Expo player, before he was Me Too-ed the hell out of there. Whenever he second-guessed a manager, he’d say something like, “but there’s a reason he’s down there and I’m up here wearing makeup.” Remember that song, “Desperado?” It works for Alvarado perfectly — “Alvarado, Why don’t you come to your senses . . . . “

Jeremy Pena deserved the World Series MVP for his Jeter-esque performance. Got a hit whenever he had to. First rookie non-pitcher ever to win the WS MVP. (The pitchers were Livan Hernandez (Florida, 1997), and Norm Sherry, way back in 1959 for the Dodgers.) How neat is this? — when Dusty Baker, Astro manager, made his managerial debut with the Giants on Opening Day in 1993, the leadoff batter for the opposing team (St. Louis) was Geronimo Pena — Jeremy’s father. (Cue the eerie music.)

Triva fans — did anyone ever win the WS MVP from the losing team? Yes! Bobby Richardson on the 1960 Yanks, in the Series Pittsburgh won on Mazeroski’s famous HR over the left field wall in Forbes Field. Forbes Field has been torn down, but the site of the wall has been saved. Linda and I visited it in August. Here’s a shot of me catching Maz’s shot in front of the (rebuilt) wall.

---

And here’s some chatter on Saturday’s and Sunday’s puzzles.

If, like me, you’ve been wondering where Tasmanian Emus have been all your life, wonder no more. According to today’s puzzle, they’ve been extinct since around 1865, according to an Australian database. They were hunted as a pest and for food, but would have avoided extinction due their great speed, if only guns had been used against them. The introduction of domestic hunting dogs into Tasmania were their great undoing (woof woof).

Saturday’s puzzle featured some great words and clues. The clue for 36A was “This clue’s answer might contain more than seven letters,” but we were given only seven squares to fill! WTF? The answer: MAILBAG. Get it? A mailbag “contains letters.”

45A: “Met for a few hours in the evening?” The answer: OPERA (“Met”ropolitan Opera).

20A: “Raise people’s spirits?” — HOLD A SEANCE.

14D: “Game where It always counts.” — HIDE AND GO SEEK. (The “It” had a capital I.)

23D: “Shot only you can take.” — SELFIE

Even some of the small fill was clever: 4D: “Unsalted, perhaps.” — ICY (Think Winter, sidewalk).

Some other niceties in the grid: FLIRT was just a short distance from LADIES. (Come here often, girls?) RESTING was crossed by EASY CHAIR. And how about this? 13A: “Famous game-saving 1954 World Series play by Willie Mays” was THE CATCH, not far from FIELD DAYS.

I learned a weird new word too — “Ochlocracy,” meaning MOB RULE.

And how about METONYM, the last across answer? That’s when a word, name, or expression is used as a substitute for something it’s closely associated with. For example, Washington is a metonym for the federal government, K Street for lobbyists, Hollywood for the film industry, etc.

Metonym led LMS down the “nym” rabbit hole, where she found capitonym. That’s when a word changes meaning when it’s capitalized. Polish/polish; Turkey/turkey; March/march. And there’s aptronym (also called euonym), when a name is “apt.” For example, the racer Usain BOLT, a redhead named Scarlet, an Asian lawyer (who really exists) named SUE YOO. There’s a dentist near me named Dr. FANG. The opposite (or antonym) is an inaptronym, when a name is inapt — a misnomer. A conservative named Lefty, a boring person named Wildman. And how about oronym? That’s when two phrases or words differ in meaning and spelling, but sound the same. New deal and nude eel; I scream and ice cream; depend and deep end. All oronyms.

The word “daith” was in a clue: “Location of a daith piercing.” Answer: EAR. LMS called daith a nobodyknowswhatthehellthatisonym. She added these additional examples: philtrum, lunule, and glabella. (I’ll look them up later. Maybe.) A “daith piercing” is a piercing through the smallest fold of cartilage in your ear, just above the entrance to your ear canal. There is anecdotal evidence (but no scientific evidence) for daith piercing helping with migraine headaches.

Sunday’s was a BAD ASS puzzle (alert the tuchas squad!) The clue for BAD ASS was “Intimidating in a cool way.” There was also tuchas-related apparel: THONGS, boringly clued as “Some beachwear.” (Boo, jeered Avi cheekily.)

The puzzle was called LENGTH-ENING, and the trick was to add the letters EN to some phrases, to arrive at a cute result with the spelling after the EN changed, but not the pronunciation. Also, the EN had to be pronounced (like the French) “ON.” E.g., for the clue “How Shamu acknowledged the crowd’s appreciation?,” the answer was MARINE ENCORE. So the change was made to “Marine Corps.” Another one was: “Why the party’s about to get less hip?” SQUARE EN ROUTE (from “square root”). In each case the spelling but not the pronunciation is altered, and the EN is French. The best one was funny: “Prepare for a sword fight, McKellen, Fleming, all other namesakes out there!”? EN GARDE, IANS OF THE GALAXY!

The answer MEAGRE is usually clued with something like “Scarce in London,” because it’s the British spelling of meager. But today it was clued with “‘The ________ Company’ (Frans Hals portrait).” Here’s what it looks like, below. You think you have a bad commute? Hals was unhappy about having to schlep to Amsterdam from Haarlem to work on the painting, and it wound up being finished by someone else (Pieter Codde).

---

We had a nice time in Saratoga Springs. Here’s a shot of Linda near a tree.

We especially enjoyed a wonderful cup o’ coffee and breakfast sandwiches this morning at Uncommon Grounds right in the middle of town. What a nice scene.

Last, the Jets upset the big bad Bills today! Whodathunkit?!

The biblical scholars among you will be pleased to see Mount HOREB in the puzzle today (“Biblical peak”) at 31 down.  That’s where God gave Charlton Heston the Ten Commandments.  It’s also where the burning bush incident occurred, and where Mo struck the rock to get water out of it.   According to Exodus 3:5, the ground of the mountain was considered holy, and Moses was commanded by God to remove his sandals.  This is also the source of the modern day requirement to remove your shoes for airport security, although many of the Israelites filed papers to obtain exemptions.

The puzzle is highlighted by six down answers that go all the way from the top to the bottom, i.e,, six 15-letter answers, quite a feat of construction.  My faves were FREAKING AWESOME (clued by “Amazeballs”), and TEMPORARY TATTOO (clued by “Erasable ink?”).  A few months ago, “temporary tattoo” was nicely clued by “Mom for a day, e.g.”  (Get it?)

Two ballplayers are in the grid.  The first is “Slammin’ Sammy,” which had to be golfer Sam Snead, except there were only four squares to fill.  It turned out to be Sammy SOSA.  He appeared right below “Muscly” for BUILT, in his case via steroids.  And “Six-time Dodgers All-Star Ron,” is Ron CEY, nicknamed The Penguin, by his HS coach for his slow waddling running gait.  He had a heckuva career, including being named MVP of the 1981 WS in which the Dodgers beat the Yankees.

I had no idea why “Resting spot for some buns” would be NAPE, but a comment in Rex explained buns meant “hair buns.”  

“Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, for two,” was a great clue for KANSANS.  

In the new-stuff-learned dept., the clue for POLARIS, the brightest star in the constellation, commonly known as the North Star or Pole Star, taught me it is actually three stars.   Also ANEMONES can refer to either the lovely plant in the buttercup family, or, as a Sea Anemone, a predatory marine organism, so named because it looks like the plant.

Several of you (Hi Liz and Joe!) took me to task for neglecting to call attention to yesterday’s blatant tuchas appearance in PAIN IN THE ASS, and less so in KICK IN THE PANTS.  So I won’t neglect to mention today’s sightings:  The hidden tuchas of Angela BASSETT, and the phonetic rears in “ASCENDS.”  The latter is clued by “Takes the throne, say,” which puts a bathroom spin on that “throne.”  And don’t forget those buns, see above.

Okay, gotta run. Heading upstate for the weekend. Happy puzzling, puzzlers.

Quite a reversal of fortune for the Phils last night. Not only did they lose, they couldn’t even scratch out a hit. It was only the second time in World Series history that a team was no-hit. The first, of course, was Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 WS for the Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers. This one wasn’t perfect: three Phils reached base on walks. And it took four Astro pitchers to accomplish, while Larsen’s was perfect and was all his.

Larsen started his career with the Aberdeen Pheasants in 1947, and had stints with the Wichita Falls Spudders and several other teams before making it to the big leagues. I thought Spudders had something to do with potatoes but a Spudder is (1) an oil driller, and (2) a tool that removes bark from timber. Here’s what the tool looks like:

Get this – the first Wichita Falls Spudders team ran from 1920 to 1932 at which point it moved to Longview Texas and became the Longview Cannibals. Wait, what? Yes, the Cannibals! They got that name after one of their relief pitchers had such a poor outing that he was dismembered and eaten in the clubhouse after the game by several of his teammates. No! Just kidding! The team was called the Longview Baseball Club, but after a lopsided victory a local reporter wrote: “The poor San Antonio Missionaries were eaten up by the Longview Cannibals today,” and the name stuck.

Larsen was traded to the Yanks by Baltimore in 1955 as part of a 17-player trade. Yes, seventeen. He left the Yanks after the 1959 season in the trade with Kansas City that brought Roger Maris to NY.

Larsen’s control was so sharp in his perfect game that he went to three balls on only one batter. The game ended on a called third strike, his 97th pitch. The last batter was pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell. Larsen’s catcher, Yogi Berra, leapt into his arms.

Larsen’s first marriage, to Vivian in 1955, was less than perfect. On the day Larsen pitched his perfect game they were estranged, and Vivian was in court seeking to have his WS winnings withheld and paid towards her support. But his second marriage, to Corinne, lasted over 60 years. In 2012, he auctioned off the uniform he wore for the perfect game, and used the proceeds to pay for college for his grandchildren. He died on New Year’s Day, 2020, at age 90.

---

The puzzle today described itself at 38 across: BLAH, clued as “Meh.” My favorite word in it was PLINTH. Don’t thay it outloud — you’ll be lithping for half an hour. The clue was “Column base.” Here’th a nithe plinth:

In the “Missed Opportunity Department,” 34 across: NO EAR, was clued as “Absence of musical ability.” I’d have used “Taunt hurled by art hooligans at Van Gogh,” although I guess that would have to be “One ear.”

Leopold AUER was the answer for 22D. Classical music fans might recognize him as the great Hungarian/Russian violinist who lived from 1845 to 1930. He came to the U.S. during the Russian Revolution. Many of his students achieved great success, including Jascha Heifetz. Tchaikovsky was a big fan and helped get Auer his position in the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he stayed for 49 years. Had I not wasted so much time, space, and energy on all that drivel about Don Larsen, I might have gone on longer about Auer. So count yourself lucky.

Leopold Auer is no relation to Arnold Sexauer, a Manhattan attorney. I had to call Sexauer once but the connection was bad. The receptionist answered and I said “Arnold Sexauer, please.” She said she couldn’t hear me, so I repeated it louder: “Arnold Sexauer, please.” Again, she told me it wasn’t coming through. I tried one more time but it was frustrating, so I started shouting into the phone — “Sexauer, Sexauer, — do you have a Sexauer there?” And she said, “Are you kidding me? We don’t even get a coffee break.”

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.”

---

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.

Today’s puzzle employs the well-known mnemonic for the Great Lakes: HOMES, for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. But our favorite member of the commentariat (LMS) suggested a better one, one that uses their full names. It’s Leon Likes Licking Luscious Lollies. Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Superior. Much better.

For those of you keeping track of the tuchas sightings, I did get a response to my post on whether ERSE should be considered a variant of ARSE. Here’s the reply: “I considered ERSE as being, perhaps, an Irish AE [“Ass equivalent”]. But if you don’t draw the line somewhere, you’ll never hit bottom.” My response: “I agree. Sometimes it’s best just to turn the other cheek.”

Favorite clue/answer today: “Slept soundly?” Answer: SNORED.

SMEW and MERL are two birds that appeared in the puzzle yesterday and today. Both are new to me, which means nothing: if the bar on bird knowledge for me were any lower it would be underground. The smew is a species of duck.

The merl is a dark European thrush.

Today’s theme worked with the idea of a LINKING VERB. I tried to understand what that is, but it eluded me. I’ll just copy this from wikipedia for you in case you can make sense of it:

A linking verb is a verb that describes the subject by connecting it to a predicate adjective or predicate noun (collectively known as subject complements). Unlike the majority of verbs, they do not describe any direct action taken or controlled by the subject. [I fell off the truck at “predicate adjective.”]

This might help: The following sentences include linking verbs:

Roses are red.
The detective felt sick.
The soup tasted weird.
Frankenstein’s monster resembles a zombie.
He quickly grew tired.
You are becoming a nuisance.

Fortunately, understanding that was not needed to solve the puzzle. The theme answers just had the letters V-E-R-B “linking” two words. E.g., NEVER BETTER, clued as “Upbeat response to ‘How are you?’” (It also occurred in OVER BUDGET, COVER BAND, and RIVER BASIN.)

LMS, who is a teacher of problem children, had this to say about “never better.” “In my experience this response always feels forced and shrill. Like the person is determined to feel this way come hell or high water. I guess I admire that, but it’s not the way I roll; I prefer to publicly wallow in my misery. Every Monday we’re supposed to fill out this Monday “Check-in Survey” to report our mental state, and I always check the one that says I’m overwhelmed and need help. I add in the note that I cry all the time. No one has touched base with me, so why are we even being asked?”

The “linking verb” theme inspired some terrific wordplay in the commentariat. One fellow applied the concept to “sausage links.” Here were some of his invented clues and answers — see if you can find the “sausage link” in each:

1. Is carrying our own home-grown virus?
2. Bushy Bahamas sight?
3. Jacob’s brother’s to-do list

Answers:

1. HAS A USA GERM.
2. NASSAU SAGEBRUSH.
3. ESAU’S AGENDA.

And that inspired another to work with “Bobolinks” to come up with words linked by BOBO.

Two of these were:

1. Requests for skewered meat
2. Nerdy reed player

Answers:

1. KABOB ORDERS
2. DWEEB OBOIST

---

OK, everybody. It was a long day. I’m going to end it by watching the Phillies pummel the hated Astros — a bunch of dweeb oboists, if you ask me.

Walter O’Malley, whose name Brooklynites utter with the same degree of loathing Jews reserve for the Nazis, was the man most responsible for moving the Dodgers to LA. And the woman most responsible was Roz Wyman, who died last Wednesday, at age 92. In 1953, when she was 22, she became the youngest person (and only the second woman), elected to the LA City Council, having based her campaign on a promise to bring major league baseball to the city. Once in office, she was crucial to the effort to convince O’Malley to move the team. O’Malley himself said “Roz did it,” and that “she deserves all the credit.” How beloved a figure is she in LA sports history? Well, she was honored with a bobblehead doll .

It’s a good likeness.

If you read Rex Parker’s daily NYT puzzle blog you will find him to be a nitpicker and curmudgeon of the highest order, albeit a lovable one. Today, in honor of Halloween, someone posted an imaginary scene between him and a 4-year-old trick-or-treater:

4YO – Trick or treat!
Rex – What are you supposed to be?
4YO – I’m a ghost.
Rex – You call that a ghost costume? The eye holes are not symmetrical and there’s a tag on it. And since when do ghosts wear Nikes?
4YO – Can I have some candy mister?
Rex – OK. But next year you better have a better costume.

The puzzle had a term that was new to me: DOOM SCROLLS, clued as “Binges on bad news, in modern slang.” It prompted commenter LMS to chat about her web “scrolling” habits, and she shared this very short video, which I dare you not to laugh out loud at: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Sgw3zXzTNO8

I’m not the only one keeping a tuchas watch on the puzzle. A Rex commenter is keeping close track too, and noted that today’s grid contained SEAT, END, and ASSay. He also thought ASTOR could qualify, as in the phrase: “I got my ASTOR up pretty bad by that Rottweiler.” I posted a response, wondering if ERSE (clued as “Gaelic dialect”), could qualify, as a variant of the British “arse.” I’ll let you know if he gets back to me, or if he’s a SNOOT (“Stuck-up sort”).

Appropriate for a Monday Monday puzzle, The Mamas & The Papas made an appearance. The question as to exactly how Cass Elliot died came up recently. So let’s take a look.

Cass was born Ellen Naomi Cohen in Baltimore. All four of her grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. After The Mamas and The Papas “disbanded,” she maintained a solo career that was going well. After a successful performance in London, she celebrated for 24 hours straight at various venues (including at Mick Jagger’s home for his 32nd birthday). She eventually got to sleep at singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson’s apartment, where she died in her sleep of heart failure, at age 32.

There are two theories for how the legend grew that she died from choking on a ham sandwich. The first is that the doctor who was called to her room noticed a half-eaten ham sandwich, and speculated to the press that it might have had something to do with her death. The autopsy had not been performed yet to establish the actual cause. The second is that the sandwich story was promoted by her manager to protect her reputation fearing the actual cause was drug-related. In fact, no food was found in her windpipe and no drugs in her system.

The constructor of today’s puzzle, Emily Carroll, may have wanted to team a big man up with that big woman, because SHAQ O’Neal is also in the grid. I’m not going to dwell on him much, other than to note he’s a Jersey man, born in Newark, and that my favorite sentence in his wikipedia entry is “O’Neal came from a tall family.” Ya think?

Shakespeare’s Portia visits the puzzle today, identified as “The Merchant of Venice character who favors wordplay.” She has a line in which she comments on “the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father,” i.e., a play on the word “will.” (The second will refers to a will as a testamentary document.) She is better known for stating that “the quality of mercy is not strained,” which goes pretty far towards explaining why it’s so lumpy.

And she’s the first image I managed to place into the blog! This is Lynn Collins as Portia, quite beautiful. She played Portia in the 2004 movie version, with Al Pacino as Shylock. Portia is also wealthy and very sharp, thus she successfully argued the case against Shylock to save Antonio. (Oops — I forgot to say “spoiler alert.”) The New England School of Law recognized her legal acumen — it was called the Portia Law School when it was established in 1908 as a law school for women only, and it retained that name until 1969. Abigail Adams used Portia as her pen name when she wrote letters to hubby John Adams, who signed his “Lysander,” the handsome young man from Athens in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I may start signing my notes to Linda like that. (Too late?) Last, the “Portia Hypothesis” holds that women with masculine-sounding names tend to be more successful in the legal profession than those with feminine-sounding names.

Other visitors to the grid today are Manhattan’s first Black elected district attorney, Alvin BRAGG, at 74D. Welcome counselor! He’s right next to YOYO MA at 75D, proving there’s always room for cello. And welcome as well to (Dame) ANNA WINTOUR of Vogue and Conde Nast. She should zhuzh things up a bit. And ERNIE PYLE, WWII correspondent, of whom Harry Truman said: “No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told. He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen.” He was killed by Japanese machine gun fire, and was buried wearing his helmet, between an infantry private and a combat engineer.

But the star of the puzzle was ALAN TURING of “The Imitation Game” and Enigma Machine fame. The Enigma Machine is what the Germans used during the war to encrypt messages, and Turing helped decipher them for the good guys. As a letter in code was typed into the machine, its counterpart appeared above it (or something like that). And in the puzzle eight five-letter answers had to be “decoded” to get a Turing quote. But the code was given to us solvers, and the online version did the decoding for you, by flashing first the answers you entered and then the decoded quote — similar to how the Enigma Machine worked, I guess — you entered one version and then the other appeared. So we didn’t have to solve anything other than the regular puzzle, which was on the easy side. I mean, everyone knows Herbert Hoover’s middle name was CLARK, right?

Turing and the British were building on the groundbreaking (and code-breaking) work of Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski. Here’s a memorial dedicated to Rejewski in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz.

---

OK, that’s about it for today. I’m going to stare a bit longer at Portia, above, and then go watch the Jets.