Only one grouping is correct, even when multiple seem to fit.
Each day, a small grid of sixteen words invites sports fans to find the hidden order beneath apparent chaos — a ritual that rewards not just athletic knowledge, but the patience to see past the obvious. On April 22, puzzle 576 of the NYT Connections Sports Edition asked players to navigate baseball cathedrals, football geography, shared mascots, and the women who scored in the sport's most defining moments. It is a modest game, but like all good puzzles, it holds a mirror to how much we know, and how much we assume we do.
- Sixteen words sit on a grid like suspects in a lineup — each one plausible, several deliberately misleading, and only one arrangement entirely correct.
- The week's puzzles grow harder by design, and by midweek the categories demand the kind of cross-sport fluency that casual fans rarely carry.
- A category about Eagles forces players to abandon the obvious — Philadelphia, yes, but also Boston College, Crystal Palace, and Marquette, all bound by a shared symbol rather than a shared league.
- The hardest tier asks for women who scored in a World Cup final — Heath, Holiday, Lavelle, Rapinoe — names that belong to history but may sit just outside the average player's recall.
- Four mistakes and the game is over; the clock resets at midnight, and tomorrow the cycle begins again with a fresh grid and a new test of what you think you know.
The New York Times has built a daily ritual out of the word-puzzle habit, and its sports-specific Connections edition keeps that rhythm alive for fans who measure the world in stadiums, rosters, and final scores. On April 22, puzzle 576 arrived with a particular lean toward baseball, football geography, mascots, and women's soccer history.
The format is familiar: sixteen words, four hidden groups of four, and only one correct arrangement. Words are designed to mislead — several will seem to belong together until the right thread reveals itself. Players have four mistakes before the game ends, and the difficulty climbs as the week progresses.
The easiest category asked for words found in MLB stadium names — Centre, Field, Park, Stadium — the architectural vocabulary of baseball. The green tier moved to the AFC North, grouping Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Philadelphia as the cities anchoring one of football's most storied divisions. The blue category demanded lateral thinking: Boston College, Crystal Palace, Marquette, and Philadelphia all share the eagle as their symbol, cutting across sports and continents.
The hardest tier reached into women's soccer history, asking for players who scored in a Women's World Cup final — Heath, Holiday, Lavelle, and Rapinoe. These are names from the sport's most consequential stages, and recalling them required more than casual fandom.
The game, born from a collaboration between the Times and The Athletic, resets each night at midnight. Solve it, share your results, and return tomorrow — the grid will be waiting.
The New York Times has extended its grip on the daily word-puzzle habit with a sports-specific version of Connections, and on April 22, puzzle number 576 arrived with a particular tilt toward baseball stadiums, professional football geography, and the women's game.
Connections: Sports Edition works like its parent game—sixteen words sit on a grid, and your job is to find four groups of four, each sharing a hidden thread. The catch is that multiple words will seem to belong together, but only one grouping is correct. Get all four words in a category right, and they vanish. Guess wrong, and you burn one of your four allowed mistakes. The game resets daily after midnight, and each puzzle grows incrementally trickier as the week progresses.
Today's puzzle demanded some specific knowledge. The yellow category—the easiest tier—asked for words that appear in Major League Baseball stadium names: Centre, Field, Park, and Stadium. These are the building blocks of how baseball venues introduce themselves to the world, from the straightforward to the grandiose. The green tier shifted to geography, specifically the cities that anchor the AFC North, one of professional football's most storied divisions: Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. These four cities form the backbone of a conference known for its intensity and tradition.
The blue category took a different turn entirely, asking for Eagles—but not the band, and not just one team. The puzzle grouped Boston College, Crystal Palace, Marquette, and Philadelphia, all institutions that claim the eagle as their mascot or symbol. This category required the kind of lateral thinking that separates casual players from those who've spent time across multiple sports and their cultures. The purple tier, the hardest, demanded knowledge of women's soccer history. It asked for players who scored in a Women's World Cup final: Heath, Holiday, Lavelle, and Rapinoe. These are names from the sport's most consequential moments, women who delivered when the stakes were highest.
The game itself launched as a collaboration between the New York Times and The Athletic, the sports publication the Times acquired to anchor its sports coverage. Players can access it on web browsers or mobile devices, and the color-coding system—yellow, green, blue, purple—signals difficulty progression. Shuffle the board if you need to, spot the connections, and share your results on social media once you've solved it. You get four mistakes before the game ends. Tomorrow, a new puzzle will arrive, and the cycle begins again.
Citas Notables
The game is all about finding the common threads between words— Mashable India on Connections mechanics
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does the Times keep launching these word games? Wordle, Strands, now Connections—what's the strategy here?
They've found something that works. A daily puzzle creates habit. People come back. It's low-friction engagement that keeps you in the ecosystem.
And the sports version—is that just a reskin, or does it actually change how you play?
It changes what you need to know. The original Connections can be solved by anyone with a broad vocabulary. The sports version locks you out if you don't follow sports. It's narrower, more tribal.
So it's not for everyone.
No. It's for people who live in sports. That's the whole point. The Times is saying: we own The Athletic now, we own sports coverage, and we're going to build games around that.
The women's World Cup category—that felt specific. Why include that?
Because those moments matter. Rapinoe, Lavelle, the others—they scored in finals. That's not trivia; that's history. And it signals that the game takes women's sports seriously, not as an afterthought.
Do you think people actually solve these, or do they just come here for the answers?
Both. Some people want the puzzle. Some people want the answer. The Times doesn't really care which—they got you to click either way.