![]() There are bragging rights that come with being the first to finish that day’s crossword, and what are bragging rights worth if you don’t brag? “What you would do is sign it and walk up to the other person and be like, ‘If you need the answer key, I got you,’” Ottavino says. “When it comes to basic words - nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, synonyms, antonyms - I’m OK with all that,” he says.Ĭrossword bullies can be found in many clubhouses. ![]() He has his weak spots, like the names of countries and world capitals. “I just can’t put them together to make great sentences.” He’s just done enough crosswords in his career - he started them as a minor leaguer in the mid-1980s - that he’s developed an aptitude. You don’t know that one yet?’” Serving with Fetters on the same coaching staff, Hinske has felt his glare more than once.įetters doesn’t paint himself as an intellectual. “I’ll stand over their shoulder and say, ‘No, that’s not the right answer. If he finishes the puzzle before you - and odds are, he will - he’ll taunt you as you try to wrestle each clue into submission. He is the best the Diamondbacks have to offer in the crossword game. In Arizona, where Fetters serves as the team’s bullpen coach, the 56-year-old is known as the Crossword Bully. To some, Fetters is known by a different name. Hinske bats against the Orioles in May 2008. ![]() Today, as you’re reading this, a printed-out crossword awaits players at their locker in nearly every clubhouse in baseball. But whatever the difficulty, crossword puzzles are an embedded aspect of baseball culture. Rare is the player or coach who takes a shot at the Sunday Times. The most popular crossword in the game is USA Today’s, which isn’t regarded as particularly challenging by true crossword aficionados. No one is claiming that baseball players are among the world’s word geniuses, especially the players themselves. “When you’re doing a crossword,” Ottavino says, “you’re not really thinking of other things.” You keep your mind sharp.” Joyner thinks doing crosswords “kept me more alert” before games: “I like what it did with my brain.” If it’s not sharpening the mind, it’s allowing it to float freely. “Baseball is a problem-solving game,” Wilson says. There’s something about the sport and the puzzle that, like the answers for 1-Across and 1-Down, just fit together. Hall of Fame pitcher Mike Mussina was featured in a crossword puzzle documentary. The 1980s Mets had a quintet - Keith Hernandez, Tom Seaver, Ron Darling, Ed Lynch and Rusty Staub - that attacked the vaunted New York Times puzzle daily. So did former Giants closer Brian Wilson, former Angels slugger Wally Joyner and former Brewers reliever Mike Fetters. Slap a foul ball into a dugout in any era and odds are you’ll hit one.ĭiamondbacks outfielder Kole Calhoun, Royals starter Brad Keller and Red Sox reliever Adam Ottavino do crosswords before every game. For generations, there has been a group of crossword guys on just about every team. Hinske got into crosswords a season or two after winning the award, but he’s since joined a long lineage of baseball players who start their day with the puzzle. When he opened up his own copy of the paper, there it was among the clues in the down section of the puzzle: “2002 AL Rookie of the Year Eric.” “I think they gave them my first name because I’m not that famous,” says Hinske, now the assistant hitting coach with the Diamondbacks. It was a birthday present from his wife, who’d dialed up the crossword editor at USA Today to ask for a favor.
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