Grid: quarter-hour; meta 3 minutes 

Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Fall Classic” — Conrad’s writeup.

This week we’re searching for a World-Series Winning Team. The two central entries (FOUROUT OFSEVEN, collectively clued as “Games required to win the World Series”) have been thematic. I had the grid 1/4 crammed, scanned the opposite seven-letter entries, noticed BAL because the fourth letter of the primary three, and was off to the races. The grid had sixteen (!) theme entries:

WSJ Contest – 10.21.22 – resolution

• ZAM(B)IAN: [From Lusaka, say]
• LAG(A)SSE: [“Bam!” man]
• ANA(L)OGY: [IQ test challenge]
• IGA(T)HER: [“Presumably…”]
• CAP(I)TOL: [Mall structure]
• VER(M)EER: [“View of Delft” painter]
• PAR(O)LES: [Frees, in a way]
• FOU(R)OUT: [With 38-Across, games required to win the World Series]
• OFS(E)VEN: [See 36-Across]
• YES(O)RNO: [“Just answer the question”]
• INE(R)ROR: [Mistakenly]
• ATE(I)TUP: [Loved the attention]
• PAL(O)OKA: [Uncultured type]
• TAL(L)ONE: [Bar order on a hot day]
• SNE(E)ZES: [Elicits a blessing]
• ILL(S)TOP: [“Didn’t realize how annoying that was, sorry”]

The fourth letter of every seven-letter themer spells BALTIMORE ORIOLES, our contest resolution. This was a ravishing meta by Matt: nearly all of the characters within the grid are thematic: 112 out of 180 by my rely. Both the theme entries are the answer letters are symmetric. And it didn’t really feel compelled. Amazing. Solvers: please let me know what you suppose. I’ll finish with Baltimore’s Beach House.