The New York Times

ACROSS

1 Horizontal pieces covering joints, in architecture 8 Team that last won the World Series in 1979 15 Ancient Greek land that fought Sparta 16 Weaver of Greek mythology 17 Some farm machinery 18 To the point 19 Personae non gratae 20 Gets in on the game 21 Must pay 22 Often-repeated line 23 Cup holders 25 Things you must choose, it’s said 26 Sort 27 Lose-lose 29 Spanish muralist José María ___ 30 Infrequent ending for URLs 31 Sign of age 35 Part of a watch that holds the face’s glass cover 37 ___-dieu 41 Like hippies, by nature 43 Thickening agent in cookery 45 Seriously hurt 46 Recipient of a Mailer-Daemon notice 47 Saucy name? 49 Eventually 50 Gives meaning to 51 Slippery 52 Puerto Rican home to the Western Hemisphere’s largest radio telescope 53 Open to everyone 54 Sides of blocks 55 Corpus Christi, e.g.

DOWN

Shooter’s target in 21 soccer Passage between buildings 3 Gather with difficulty 4 “Understand?” 5 Brainstorm 6 Bleachers blaster 7 Unwelcome comeback 8 Amazon rodent 9 Athlete among athletes 10 Harangue 11 Décor features Heraldic emblem of Scotland Guarantor 2425 14 1213 Overlook, as a fault Not wasted “L’Arlésienne” suite composer, 1872 28 1975 Best Musical, with “The” 31 Open-sided shelters 32 Distracted, maybe 33 More severe 34 “Evita” lyricist 35 It may be a writeoff 36 Mississippi River explorer 37 Turpentine is distilled from it 38 Philippine strongman ___ Duterte 39 Become slippery, in a way 40 Heartfelt 42 Kind of roast 44 Singer Clark 48 Baja bears 49 Places where black-eyed Susans grow