Can I help you a little today? Today's puzzle - "American pastime" - is not difficult to decipher, even as an Englishman, but it may be difficult to identify certain areas of the topic.

Below we've compiled some useful tips for Strand#73 and the answer to that. We'll start with a few clues before building the full answer for Strand #73, so read on if you need a little help.

Warning: Spoilers are ahead for Strand #73.  

The official theme of NYT Strand #73 is... "American Pastime".

And here's an unofficial tip from me: Will you go to the game?

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give those valuable clue tokens:

Still struggling? Spangram will give you tips about connecting words. Today, it starts with 'B' and ends with 'K'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

It's a ballpark.

So what is the answer for today's strand in game #73?

Drum roll, please...

...And Spangram was a ballpark.

🔵🔵🔵🔵

🟡🔵🔵🔵

hi chain. Even as a Brit not interested in baseball, I made this refreshing today. The hardest part was to figure out which part of the sport the puzzle was looking for, and when I got up to BALLPLA on my hunt for "ballplayers" I was easily worried

but I realized it was about a part of the pitch (and it was going to be a stadium), and I thought it was a good idea. I was in my element. I found a mound in the lower left corner and put a plate just above it and I was on my way. The stand and the base immediately followed.

I was at this point enough to make sure that the BALLP I had traced earlier in my hunt for "ballplayers" was actually part of a BALLPARK that was revealed to be spangram

because the remaining three were all isolated around the confirmed words, so even if I wasn't used to it, I would still be able to It could have been confusing. I HAD AN INFIELD MEANDERING AROUND THE SPANGRAM, A BULLPEN AT THE BOTTOM RIGHT AND NO OTHER FREE CHARACTERS.

It left just a dugout in the upper left corner - one of the few words used in the place where I sit in the UK for a football stadium.  

Fun stuff, it. More like this, please NYT!

Are you reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article of yesterday's Strand answer for game #72 right here.