Meaty dog treats "in a blanket" / FRI 10-17-25 / Customizable Nintendo avatars / Arizona tribe with matrilineal clans / Max ___, boxer nicknamed "Madcap Maxie" / Plant often confused with algae / Portmanteau for evidence based solely on personal accounts / Brand of rum mentioned in Hemingway novels / Drinking game with projectiles
Friday, October 17, 2025
Constructor: Karen Steinberg
Relative difficulty: Easy
Word of the Day: Max BAER (36A: Max ___, boxer nicknamed "Madcap Maxie") —
Maximilian Adelbert Baer Sr. (February 11, 1909 – November 21, 1959) was an American professional boxer and the world heavyweight champion from June 14, 1934, to June 13, 1935. He was known in his time as the Livermore Larupper and Madcap Maxie. Two of his fights (a 1933 win over Max Schmeling and a 1935 loss to James J. Braddock) were rated Fight of the Year by The Ring magazine. Baer was also a boxing referee, and had occasional roles in film and television. He was the brother of heavyweight boxing contender Buddy Baer and father of actor Max Baer Jr. Baer is rated #22 on The Ring magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. (wikipedia)
- "Bartender" ("Crosby, Stills and Nash is playing / Wine is flowing with BACARDI")
- "Off to the Races" ("I'm off to the races, cases of BACARDI chase / Chasing me all over town")
- "Noir" ("I'm Miss Parlor Tricks, sips of the BACARDI")
- "Girl That Got Away" ("Come back, sugey, come back to me / Fix me up a mixed drink, BACARDI")
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[from xwordinfo dot com] |
Shortz didn't exactly cut BAER out entirely, but there's a definite drop off, and then it's almost like you can see him, some time around 2010, deciding to turn the BAER tap down to a trickle. Of course, there's also just time ... which tends to take even famous people down, eventually. So the chart probably represents a combination of editorial decision-making (less overcommon short stuff!) and just natural fame diminishment. Still, I think of BAER as very much the boxer of CrossWorld in the olden days (well, the boxer of CrossWorld is ALI, for all eternity, but among mortals, it was BAER). I'm too young ever to have seen him box, but I have seen him in movies, most recently as the winner of this very brutal boxing match in Humphrey Bogart's last movie, The Harder They Fall (1956).
Last bits:
- 5A: Plant often confused with algae (MOSS) — had the "MO-," wrote in MOLD :(
- 17A: British singer with the top 10 albums "Crash" and "Brat" (CHARLI XCX) — if you're not up on your pop stars, you should probably get up on this one. She's gonna be used in BRAT clues for a long time to come. Wouldn't be surprised to see XCX show up occasionally on its own. She is a megastar whose album BRAT was all over the news last year, turning the term BRAT into an entire cultural phenomenon (BRAT was Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year last year) (Here's a Times article from last summer entitled "It's the Summer of 'Brats'"). Charli is feud-with-Taylor-Swift famous, and though she's never going to be as crossword-common as other pop stars with more grid-friendly names, like ADELE or RITA ORA (26D: British singer with the hits "R.I.P." and "Radioactive"), you should expect to see her name in clues and in the grid for some time to come.
- 46A: Portmanteau for evidence based solely on personal accounts (ANECDATA) — portmanteaus (portmanteaux?) are not always pleasing to my eye/ear (see SKORT, for instance), but I love ANECDATA. It somehow both sounds good and is a perfect expression of what it is.
- 41D: "Stop the presses!" ("HOLD IT!") — wanted something more press-specific here at first, but the "presses" part is just metaphorical. The clue could just as easily have been ["Stop!"], but ... every other clue in that SE section is trying to throw you off, why not this one!?
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