Close Calls

Chewy and interesting grid, thank you!

Baseball yes! Thanks, Al.

Agree on the grid. Had the right mechanism early enough (and fortunately came up with what it had to be before looking to see whether ACME had started a Go Fund Me to Free Wily -- I know, wrong spelling.) But not sure if I have all it takes -- LANDER is close to Orbiter? Regardless, Thank you, Al, for the fun challenge!

I was worried when I saw it was about baseball, but a very easy going meta. Thanks, Al!

Woohoo! I solved a sportsing one! Fun one, thanks Al! I admit I kind of "backed into" this one. I found one of the CLOSE CALLS in the grid, I'm still looking for the other two...

Nice!

...and found the other two. VERY clever.

Strike 1, strike 2, strike 3--yer out! Great job Al.

Many amusements herein. Thanks, Al!

Fun cluing and a clever metanism -- that would be a classic Sisti puzzle! Except for the absence of a certain NY city ...

Fun. Thanks.

Agree a very engaging grid with a great AROD dis to boot. Forecast here is for pluvious weather til late tonight. Here's hoping all fans make it through a the winning nonet of their favorite team. And thanks for those brackets, Al!

Well I got it, but reading the comments I am not sure I got the mechanism I should have. Mine was a combo of an intuit; what is a six letter call a closer wants to hear, pitcher with a low ERA, Tom Seaver's record, and Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3 adds up to YER OUR (six letter cry). On top of that, Strike one letter from 17A (Y), two from 39A (ER) and three from 62A (OUT) and of course the one I liked for obvious reasons; TOM SAW LANDER (ORBITER) with YER OUT left over. I am afraid I do not see any Close Calls but I'd bet there are many things I missed. I had a tough time with the GRID, one spot in particular, because I wanted the pigeon to live in a HOLE. That works for two across answers but trying to decide what type of pitch a HOALTER (I spelled Aphesis wrong) was or what LEE had to do with the Turks, well that was a head scratcher. My favorite clue was 33A - VERY clever and 57D. Thanks for pitching a perfect game!

OMG, I just saw what everyone is talking about...BRILLIANT! Rush Song, Addams family member, Lunar ___ and that is why you would strike One letter, Two letters and Three letters. I will continue to make metas but I will never be as clever as this!

Great puzzle! Props for using the word "pluvious" :-) Does it mean anything that the first letters of the alternate entries spell out TWO, or is it just a coincidence?

Thanks, Al! Almost didn't attempt the meta after reading the prompt (huh?) and seeing strikes involved (oh, must be a baseball thing?) But you made it dummy-friendly enough even for me.

Finally got it, after ruminating over it for quite a bit. Very clever puzzle Al! Thanks for the workout.

Always love a baseball-themed meta...thanks Al!

Very fun challenge, Al! Nice AHA! when the light bulb went off...

still not 100% sure how TOMSAWYER, ORBITER, and WEDNESDAY played a path towards the solution, but they were clever finds to be sure. I couldn't do anything with them, which sent me back to the excised letters which of course constituted the solution.

Great puzzle, clueing and mechanism, Al - thank you!

I have no idea what the metanism is supposed to be, but I'm here. I just grabbed YER from TOMSAWYER and OUT from OUTLANDER and went with it, knowing there has got to be something else somewhere.

Grid tricky! But fun finding the CLOSE CALLS! Thanks, enjoyed it!

I was quite sure of the answer given the PLUVIOUS torrent of baseball clues, but finding the intricacies or the mechanism was quite enjoyable (though I had to wait for the comments here to find the alternate entry for FREE WILL). My plaudits to you, Alex for another tight MATRIX of construction.

Cool baseball one....trigger for me was Rush Freewill with the Strike one, figured I'd head down that path, and didn't strike out. Thanks Al.

Thanks, Al!

That was a fun one, and no extra pine tar was used!

Knew what it has to be, took awhile to notice the metanism because we were distracted by the red herring in 25A. Fun!

Took me a bit, but finally got there! Very cool.

Oh I JUST got it… just in time not to have to ask nudges from the Zoom group tonight. ( : What a great idea this was, and enjoyed tracking it down. I actually don’t know what is the companion clue to FREEWILL (in my world, that is a theological topic of dispute… maybe it’s something else to the wide world). Anyhoo… my initial guesses were close but no ceegar. More fun to find it the intended way, though!

GO WHITE SOX!

Thanks Al!

What a great/vast collection of clues and answers! Thank you as always for sharing yer skillz!

amazing stuff. Got to it late due to being at a meeting last week. Guessed the answer right away, but of course waited until I knew how it worked to submit. Not sure I'd have gotten it without the nudges.