LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: MGWCC #893– “One If by Land”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is one of the ten MLB teams mentioned in the theme entries (not necessarily one of the two that’s mentioned twice).
Answer: THE DETROIT TIGERS, found by 210 solvers, 122 of which were solo solves

Ye Olde Week 2 Curse strikes again! When I first mapped this one out in my mind it seemed right down the middle of the plate for a Week 2, but then just before publication I started to wonder if this wasn’t more of a Week 3, which it wound up becoming…

Geography + baseball were the two main players in this matchup. Our six curious theme entries were matchups themselves — real ones from the current season, in fact:

17-A: [They’ll play on Sept. 28 (2)] = MARINERS-DODGERS
22-A: [They’ll play on July 21st (4)] = TIGERS-PIRATES
32-A: [They’ll play on August 4th (5)] = TWINS-TIGERS
40-A: [They’ll play on September 1st (1)] = BLUE JAYS-REDS
51-A: [They’ll play on August 29th (6)] = RED SOX-PIRATES
57-A: [They’ll play on July 12th (3)] = BRAVES-CARDINALS

One other clue also stood out as suggestive: 63-A read [Take a bus, perhaps (as baseball teams might to play each other)] = TRAVEL

OK, so we’ve got teams traveling to play each other, and a title of “One If by Land.” So let’s take a look at which states these teams might travel through if they took a team bus to the game instead of a plane:

Mariners-Dodgers: The one-state land route from Seattle to L.A. necessarily takes you through OREGON

Tigers-Pirates: The one-state land route from Detroit to Pennsylvania necessarily takes you through OHIO

Twins-Tigers: The one-state land route from Minneapolis to Detroit necessarily takes you through WISCONSIN

Blue Jays-Reds: the one-state land route from Toronto to Ohio necessarily takes you through MICHIGAN

Red Sox-Pirates: the one-state land route from Boston to Pittsburgh necessarily takes you through NEW YORK

Braves-Cardinals: the one-state land route from Atlanta to St. Louis necessarily takes you through TENNESSEE. Really using the whole state of Tennessee there! If you squint, Tennessee looks like a first baseman stretching to catch the throw from third before the runner gets to the bag…

Put those states in order by their parenthetical clue numbers and you get MOTOWN, suggesting contest answer the DETROIT TIGERS, found by 210 solvers.

So we need a Motown song about constant travel…got it:

mikem000 says:

I didn’t know if the scrawny little “Your entry” box could handle “The team with the best record in baseball, with 6 all-stars and the best pitcher in the game, ladies and gentlemen, YOUR Detroit Tigers!”

I honestly would’ve accepted that, no matter where the entry box cut it short.

Flepper writes:

Threw me for a loop when the state between the two cities spelled MOTOWN instead of a team name.

Originally went looking for a city or state from the few available letters but nothing showed up. Then I noticed MOTOWN and said, well that’s even better!

donutrobot writes:

not a fan

I’m gonna assume donut is talking about the Tigers here and not my meta…

And finally, rvkal writes:

I really thought we were going to use the Interstate numbers between each pair of cities.

Whoa! Would that’ve been cruel or cool? Stay tuned for meta #987 in a few years, which uses that precise mechanism. Hoping for no major roadwork in the interim.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is noted American crossword puzzle writer.

Good luck!
–Matt