| Best-of-seven mid-October baseball playoff round that doesn't use the designated hitter rule: Abbr. | 103 |
| Best-selling author of "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" | 76 |
| Best-selling author who wrote "I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation" | 102 |
| Best-selling children's book series by Walter Wick and Jean Marzollo | 72 |
| Best-selling novelist about whom Gore Vidal said "She doesn't write, she types!" | 94 |
| Best-selling novelist of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records | 82 |
| Best-selling novelist who wrote the children's poetry volume "Father Goose" | 89 |
| Best-selling novelist whom Time called "Bard of the Litigious Age" | 76 |
| Beverage dispensed from a machine in Lyndon Johnson's Oval Office lounge | 76 |
| Beverage whose homonym describes what you'll do if you drink too much of it | 79 |
| Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" and Hall & Oates's "She's Gone," for two | 102 |
| Bible book that begins "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia" | 80 |
| Biblical book whence the line "The meek shall inherit the earth" | 74 |
| Biblical character who had a son at age 90 and then lived another 815 years | 75 |
| Biblical figure who says to God "Make me understand how I have erred" | 79 |
| Biblically-minded rapper, or a story in which a 2008 runner-up kills his brother? | 81 |
| Big Band star who sang "I Wanna Be Like You" in "The Jungle Book" | 85 |
| Big fight, and clue to this puzzle's theme that begins the four longest answers | 83 |
| Big letters, for short (and what your answers must be written in to understand the theme) | 89 |
| Big name in CD burning software, to the extent that CDs still get burned | 72 |
| Biker club for Jewish guys? (This one's real; their shirts say, is hog is kosher") | 91 |
| Bill Barber played it on Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool" album | 77 |
| Bill Callahan covering Scottish math metal with "I Know What Boys Like" band? | 87 |
| Bill Moyers speech on income inequality in America, with "The" | 72 |
| Bill who said "It's all been satirized for your protection" | 73 |
| Bill who said of his TV monologues "It's all been satirized for your protection" | 94 |
| Bill who said, "It's all been satirized for your protection" | 74 |
| Bill who was rumored to have written Obama's "Dreams from My Father" | 82 |
| Bill Withers song whose title follows "all you want to do is" in the lyrics | 85 |
| Billie Holiday's "You Can't Be Mine (And Someone ___ Too)" | 76 |
| Billing option that favors purchasing individual items rather than packages | 75 |
| Billy Joel "Lost a ___ of fights but it taught me how to lose OK" | 75 |
| Billy Joel hit that begins "You'll have to learn to pace yourself" | 80 |
| Biography by James Fenimore Cooper with the alternate title "A Life Before the Mast" | 94 |
| Birthplace of the first giant panda in North America to survive to adulthood | 76 |
| Bit of footwear that appears at both ends of this puzzle's theme answers | 76 |
| Black Friday destination found in nine of this puzzle's Across answers | 74 |
| Black Kids "I'm ___ Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You" | 83 |
| Blake, the first African-American to write and direct a Broadway musical | 72 |
| Blanche DuBois's "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," e.g. | 90 |
| Blanche __, pseudonymous author of the 1983 best-seller "Truly Tasteless Jokes" | 89 |
| Blender magazine ranked him #1 on its list of 40 worst lyricists in rock in 2007 | 80 |
| Blender magazine's #1 song (by Usher and Ludacris) on the 100 Best Songs of 2004 | 84 |
| Blitzen's seating instruction to his sleigh driver? (No dark forces at work here!) | 86 |
| Blood-typing letters, and a hint to the "transfusions" in this puzzle | 79 |
| Blue Jays pitcher Dave who holds his team's record for most All-Star selections | 83 |
| Blue-tongued dog in the canine version of the "Twilight" series? | 74 |
| Blueprint spec ... or a '60s-'70s rock group conceding a poker hand? | 76 |
| Blueprint spec ... or an MGM heartthrob's cousin from the Netherlands? | 74 |
| Blur frontman who sings "And the mind gets dirty / As you get closer to 30" | 85 |
| Bo(dice attachment with la)y(ers that's a hallmar)k (of ballet danc)ing | 75 |
| Board game where you might hear, "Colonel Ecru, with the riata, in the oda"? | 86 |
| Board game with the categories "Data Head" and "Word Worm" | 78 |
| Bob Dylan song ... or a hint to the object found by connecting the four circled letters in a diamond | 100 |
| Bob Marley "The Complete ___ 'Scratch' Perry Sessions" | 72 |
| Bob who gets away with saying "just for shiggles" on "1 vs. 100" | 84 |
| Bob Woodward book subtitled "The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi" | 85 |
| Bobby ___, the only N.H.L.'er to win the Hart, Norris, Ross and Smythe trophies in the same year | 100 |
| Bodies making their closest approach in more than 50,000 years on August 27, 2003 | 81 |
| Bodily organ with no definite structure, function, or truth-value at all? | 73 |
| Body part in a "Wayne's World" joke used to get the other guy to say "What?" | 100 |
| Body part that 2012 Summer Olympic mascots Wenlock and Mandeville each have one of | 82 |
| Bogart told her "You're good ... you're very good" in "The Maltese Falcon" | 102 |
| Bohemian writer whose last request was that all his manuscripts be "burned unread" | 92 |
| Boll whose films are so badly reviewed that he challenged his most severe critics to a boxing match | 99 |
| Bombeck who said "A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat." | 83 |
| Bombeck who wrote "If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?" | 89 |
| Bombeck who wrote "The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank" | 78 |
| Bonjour cockzilla, want to ___? Woman scream at this more than luxury present | 77 |
| Book about a geeky niche publication whose readership went from 10 to 0? | 72 |
| Book about how it would be great to stop being nomadic and farm the prairie? | 76 |
| Book about some dork with the uncanny ability to create computer documents? | 75 |
| Book featuring a Whisper-ma-Phone, a Super-Axe-Hacker, Gluppity-Glupp and Schloppity-Schlopp | 92 |
| Book from which the film "What's Love Got to Do With It" was adapted | 82 |
| Book including chapters titled "Solitude" and "The Ponds" | 77 |
| Book subtitled "Inside the Amazing Success of Today's Most Popular Chef" | 86 |
| Book that begins "It was the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we made good our escape from the bay." | 120 |
| Book that begins "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia ..." | 78 |
| Book that says "Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes" | 85 |
| Book whose last chapter of Part I is titled "Jermin Serves Us a Good Turn--Friendships in Polynesia" | 110 |
| Book whose title character "had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her" at the start of the story | 151 |
| Boston College quarterback with a famous game-ending Hail Mary pass, 11/23/84 | 77 |
| Boston station that produces most of PBS's prime-time television programming | 80 |
| Botanist who arranged "On the Origin of Species" to be published in the States | 88 |
| Bothersome phrase indicating a show randomly won't air again until next year | 80 |
| Boulevard where Fox Studios and the Los Angeles Convention Center are located | 77 |
| Box sets containing "The Right Stuff," "A Man in Full" and "I Am Charlotte Simmons"? | 114 |
| Boxer Griffith who's the subject of the documentary "Ring of Fire" | 80 |
| Boxer Johansson who was Sports Illustrated's 1959 Sportsman of the Year | 75 |
| Boxer on the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" | 75 |
| Boxer who boasted "If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize" | 100 |
| Boxer who told Will Smith "you ain't pretty enough to play me" | 76 |
| Boxing champ portrayed in the biopic "Somebody Up There Likes Me" | 75 |
| Boxing champ whose autobiography was titled "A Man Must Fight" | 72 |
| Boy band that appeared on the "New Kids on the Blecch" episode of "The Simpsons" | 100 |
| Boy band that reunited in 2008 with the album "Summertime," for short | 79 |
| Boy band with the song "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You" | 80 |
| Boy who pulls the sword from the stone in "The Sword in the Stone" | 76 |
| Branch of geometry dealing with curved spaces (named after the German mathematician Bernhard) | 93 |
| Branch of the govt. whose number of employees and annual budget are classified, aptly | 85 |