SUNDAY PUZZLE — Before I begin, I want to mention that we understand the need for a convenient link back to the main Wordplay page, which was lost when we changed systems. We are working on bringing it back to the Wordplay label at the top of the column. That may take a while, though, so for the time being, that link will be at the very beginning of each column, where it tells you which day’s puzzle we’re discussing.

There is an easy ingenuity to David J. Kahn’s puzzles; they often revolve around very specific realms of knowledge, but reward anyone who enjoys a clever twist. In this case the topic is one of his favorites, America’s summer pastime, the ol’ horsehide, but anyone who’s played any sport or even collaborated on a project before will enjoy the punch line.

Mr. Kahn brings a gentle type of humor to the table, like the clues for INSERTS, RETIRE and TIN EAR, among others, and he is also expert in informational clues, like several in the theme. The straightforwardness of those clues — “Where techno music originated,” for example, for DETROIT, or “Relatives of bobolinks” for ORIOLES — contributed greatly to prolonging the discovery of the theme, something that I always appreciate on a Sunday.

Tricky Clues

30A: A lot of the entries that eluded me in this puzzle had a historical quality, not necessarily highbrow but of substantial lineage. I know that “Pie-eyed” means drunk. (Why? Perhaps from an 1880s printing term for a jumble of letters, perhaps from just a pie.) There’s an intoxicating array of great terms for drunk; OILED was not in my bailiwick. But fun enough, it’s one of about 200 terms in Benjamin Franklin’s “Drinker’s Dictionary.”