LAT untimed (pannonica) 
[3.67 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 6:13 (Amy) 
[3.18 avg; 11 ratings] rate it
Universal 4:12 (Jim) [3.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) 
[5.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Kate Hawkins’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up
NY Times crossword solution, 5/23/25 – no. 0523
This puzzle fought me harder than I was expecting. It’s super-fresh, with fill that feels newer. There were a couple little things that stumped me:
- 19A. [Punt e ___ (vermouth brand)], MES. Never heard of it. Pretty sure I’ve never drunk anything with vermouth in it.
- 24D. [Fruit that grows on Jamaican beaches], AKEE. I’ve only seen it spelled ackee.
Fave fill: FAST CASUAL retaurant chains, AUDRE LORDE, “IT’S YOUR LUCKY DAY,” KISSED BUTT, MOJITOS, “TELL ME MORE,” FAR LEFT, CREATIVE LICENSE, SIDE STREET, KEYSTROKES, ASK FOR HELP (don’t be shy about that!), SORE SUBJECT, TATTLETALES, PADDINGTON Bear, and MONTERO Lamar Hill (I’m a sucker for “Old Town Road,” sue me).
Three more things:
- 40A. [“Every ___ and fairy sprite / Hop as light as bird from brier”: Shak.], ELF. From A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
- 63A. [What might get you out of a jam?], SIDE STREET. The Waze app loves a good side street route. The people who live on those streets? Not a fan of the extra traffic!
- 9D. [Secondary residence on a property, for short], ADU. Adult dwelling unit, I think? No, accessory dwelling unit, aka granny flat, coach house, in-law suite.
Four stars from me. Might’ve nudged it to 4.25 but ONE-K is solidly in the debit column.
Marc Goldstein’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 5/23/25 • Fri • Goldstein • solution • 20250523
Hey wow it’s another baseball theme. Why is it that crosswords and baseball are so deeply intertwined? Do they appeal to the same geeky stats-oriented kind of person? Is it a New York/Northeast based thing (originally)? Have their evolutions roughly mirrored each other within the advent of 20th century mass media?
Anyway, here we go.
- 17a. [Tube on an automatic ball launcher?] PITCH PIPE.
- 25a. [Batter’s decision not to bunt?] SWING VOTE.
- 34a. [“I got it!” or “Blazing fastball,” for example?] CATCH PHRASE.
- 50a. [Tally entered on a scoreboard?] HIT RECORD.
- 58a. [Instructional video about getting under a tag?] SLIDE SHOW.
As you can see, the clues are all presented as having to do with baseball, but the original phrases are unrelated. Further, these theme entries arguably follow a logical sequence within the sport: pitch, swing, catch, hit, slide. It would’ve been better if hit and catch were transposed (maybe HIT THE BOOKS and CATCH COLD/FIRE/HELL?), but we can imagine that the first pitch was a strike secured by the catcher. Besides, for the sequence to be complete there would also need to be a throw between catch and slide. Upshot is that it’s good enough.
11d [Dugong, for one] SEA COW. Collectively, dugongs and manatees form the order Sirenia, reflecting how ancient mariners supposedly mistook them for mermaids and sirens. The extinct Steller’s sea cow, unlike extant tropical sirenians, inhabited temperate and polar waters. It was much larger than other members of the order—with a lower surface area-to-volume ratio—and had a thicker layer of blubber. These adaptations comport with Bergmann’s rule.- 18d [Insects in the genus Vespa] HORNETS. Knowing this quickly corrected my AHA for 21a [Cry of discovery] to OHO. It took me longer to correct 32a [Crushes, in a way] ICES to ACES because 26d [Spot for a bar code, often] WRAPPER was a tougher clue.
- 35d [Whistle blower] COACH. Probably not so much in baseball, though?
- 45d [Unlikely to be undependable] TRUSTY, although I wondered if it might be TRUEST despite the clue not explicitly calling for a superlative.
- 28a [Bygone boxy Toyota] SCION. This was not a particular model but a budget brand division. The clue feels off to me.
- 30a [Flagon kin] EWER.
- 46a [“A Death in the Family” writer James] AGEE. Symmetrical to 29a [Art Deco designer] ERTÉ. Both are looongtime crossword staples. Some might say hoary.
- 48a [Container allowances on scales] TARES. etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Italian tara, from Arabic ṭarḥa, literally, that which is removed
- Ribald nature spirit of Greek mythology] SATYR.
- 66a [“New-to-you,” perhaps] USED. I’ve always felt this is a good attitude to have, provided of course that the item is in decent condition.
Dylan Schiff’s Universal crossword, “Needs No Introduction”—Jim’s review
Circled letters in each theme entry spell out a common greeting. Theme answers are familiar(ish) words and phrases with or without these greetings though the clues are written as if they were absent. The title serves as the theme revealer.
Universal crossword solution · “Needs No Introduction” · Dylan Schiff · Fri., 5.23.25
- 44a. [Trap on all sides (In this answer, ignore letters 6-9)] BOXING DAY – G’DAY = BOX IN.
- 57a. [Piece of the pie? (… letters 5-6)] CRUSH IT – HI = CRUST.
- 3d. [Words before “Go!” (… letters 4-6)] GETS UPSET – ‘SUP = GET SET.
- 7d. [Completely fails (… letters 2-4)] THE YANKS – HEY = TANKS.
- 11d. [Defeat handily (… letters 4-5)] TROY OUNCE – YO = TROUNCE.
Good theme, and thanks to the circles in our grid, we can readily see what’s going on. I especially like G’DAY hiding in BOXING DAY which is a holiday in Britain and some Commonwealth countries, including Australia where you might say G’DAY. On the other hand, I’d never heard of a TROY OUNCE, so that one was lost on me.
Moving to the fill, “LET’S BEGIN“, ASIAN PEAR, and OPEN FIRE (as clued) are highlights and they all happen to be stacked with theme answers. GO HARD [Give every last drop of effort] feels deserving of a little bit of side-eye.
Clue of note: 6d. [Where to roast chestnuts]. OPEN FIRE. Essentially, the clue is a long partial, but it’s still preferable to a more violent alternative clue.
3.5 stars.
Puzzle: USA Today; Rating: 5 stars
smooth solve + loved the theme!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
A request. possible to add quarter star increments to the ratings dropdown?
fresh, hard NYT!
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4.5 stars
LAT – It didn’t feel overly “inside baseball” to me. The baseball knowledge bar required seems pretty low. Not an Ott or Alou to be found
This would have been a fine themeless if the theme answers had been clued differently. I think I would have preferred it that way.
4.5*
I didn’t mean to imply that this was an “inside baseball” theme.
My bad. I wasn’t responding to your opening paragraph. I was trying to convey my thoughts while solving that I thought it would’ve been a better themeless. That I didn’t think it was heavily baseball jargoned was my my jumping off point
NYT: Silly number of Naticks for me. Don’t know who AUDRE LORDE is, and don’t know what a Malibu is, or SDSU, or ADU, so all of those crosses could have been anything. And don’t know Lil Nas X’s real name, so that could have been MONET or MANET.
Similar reaction to this puzzle. AUDRE LORDE is new to me. I used to drive a Chevy Malibu, but that seems like a weak clue for AUTO. San Diego State seemed like a reasonable guess for the Mount Laguna Observatory, but ADU was a complete unknown – and even Amy was unsure. The crossing of MONET and MONTERO was the last letter in – I’m familiar with Lil Nas X, Monet and Manet, but I needed all the other crosses before I was confident in that “O.”
Monet/Manet – I use the tip, i think i read it here, that people=Manet and Nature=Monet. My eye for art ends at, “That’s pretty”
Ooo I like that trick for Monet and Manet! I mean, assuming it’s right — I have no clue about art :-) So Manet = man = people.
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I didn’t like seeing KISSEDBUTT in the NYT. Also didn’t like the repetition in HAHA and HAR.
Tougher than usual for me. I guess I’ve seen AKEE before but I needed crosses to get it. Didn’t like the clue for WRIST (I don’t like clues of this sort in general, and this one makes no sense to me). And I wasn’t aware of SHALE as an ingredient in cement – it’s optional, says Wiki, not essential.
I’ve come to hate the NYT site! It took me five attempts of logging on. That’s nine minutes wasted before I got the puzzle. Am I the only experiencing this?
Have you cleared your browser cache? I haven’t had any issues with the site lately.
I’m hesitant to clear my cache because the last time I did it took forever for me to get things back to normal. How ill doing that decrease my log on time? Will that allow me to be permanently logged-in?
It’s not a huge issue. I’m retired. I have the time to waste…
Still hoping someone will help me to get the NYT onto Across Lite.
Yeah, it’s a nuisance having to relog into sites after you clear the cache. But some buggy situations can only be solved that way. First, you reboot your machine. Second, you clear your cache. Lots of things get fixed that way.
They made me log in yesterday for the first time in probably two months. But no difficulty in getting it to work.
No problem here, but I only go to the site long enough to open the puzzle and use Crossword Scraper to give me a .PUZ file. I do regularly clear my browser cache, which necessitates logging in again, but I’ve had no trouble doing so.
I had that trouble earlier this week. I cleared my Safari cache and switched to Firefox, but neither seemed to help for long.
Eventually, though, it settled down.
This seems to happen about once a year or so with the New York Times website. It’s frustrating.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I like the longer stuff (especially the 15s), but 40 is too many 3s and 4s in a themeless IMO. And some of the smaller stuff (ADU, PSP, AKEE, HAR, MES) felt like it was too obscure and ended up leaving a bad taste.
Yeah, definitely a mixed experience because of the short/relatively obscure fill.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
I agree, and I would add that short fill with a variant spelling (AKEE) is the worst!
.3.5