Wall Street Journal, 7/23/10

“Baseball Trades” by Dan Fisher – 16:39 BC (before coffee)

Hi, everybody. Jeffrey here with another weekly dose of Wall Street Journal crossword wackiness.

Theme: Take a baseball expression, switch two letters, get a wacky phrase

Theme answers:

23A. [Make taurine sculptures? (trade positions 2 and 7)] – CARVE BULLS (curve balls). Trade the second letter U [position 2] with the seventh letter A [position 7]. Get it? Good, I’m not explaining it again.
25A. [Shock some electrical connections? (trade 3 and 7)] – SCARE CORDS (scorecards)
44A. [Keg for a “Concentration” player? (trade 1 and 9)] – MATCHER’S CASK (catcher’s mask)
63A. [Bankroll pulses like a heart? (trade 1 and 8)] – WAD THROBS (bad throws). My least favourite.
70A. [The Boy Wonder loses his youthful physique? (trade 3 and 6)] – ROBIN SAGS (rosin bags). My most favourite.
88A. [Coaches who give pointers to hurlers? (trade 3 and 8)] – PITCH HINTERS (pitch hitters). Baseball phrase to wacky baseball phrase. Cool.
110A. [Online publication on golf technique? (trade 4 and 8)] – STROKE ZINE (strike zone)
113A. [Nude beach user? (trade 3 and 5)] – BARE SUNNER (base runner). The two new words go best together here.

Other stuff:

6A. [Galleria degli Uffizi contents] – ARTE/31A. [Crowd in Cremona] – TRE/115A. [Like the answers at 6-Acr. and 31-Acr.] – ITAL. If you gotta go foreign language, fess up at 115 Across, I always say.
20A. [Jimmy’s pictures may accompany her stories] – LOIS. But Clark will scoop them both, with a wink.
21A. [Currency of Serbia, Tunisia and Bahrain] – DINAR/43A. [Currency of Chile, Colombia and Cuba] – PESO. A triple double.
58A. [Poop’s place] – STERN. What was your first thought on this one?
84A. [Site of Sultan Qaboos’s palace] – MUSCAT/47D. [Train makeup] – CARS. The last car of a train is the Qaboos.
92A. [You and your ilk] – SOLVERS. You and your ink for pen SOLVERS.
12D. [Like final episodes of canceled shows, often] – UNAIRED. Never saw this.
74D. [Old gatherings for debate] – MOOTS. I wanted Moops! Moors! Moops!
84D. [Wife, informally] – MISSUS. I do not call my wife this and I am approaching my 20^th anniversary. Coincidence?  
98D. [Czech Republic capital, to natives] – PRAHA. Are they parahalians? Can you Czech?

Muppet reference:

24D. [It may hold the solution] – BEAKER

Desperately searching for song references department:

67A. [Amneris’s rival] – AIDA
4D. [“Jersey Shore” carrier] – MTV
40D. [Wally Lamb book “___ Come Undone”] – SHE’S
46D. [Sports biopic starring John Goodman] – THE BABE

And finally…

114D. [Tilde’s meaning in symbolic logic] – NOT. Who doesn’t like to finish with symbolic logic? ~