Fireball Contest — February 10, 2021

Posted on February 14, 2021 by LauraB

Grid: 9ish; Meta: couple minutes  

 


Peter Gordon’s Fireball contest, “First Off” — Laura’s review

Welcome back, Fireball contest! This month, we are asked, “What U.S. president is hinted at by this puzzle?”

Fireball Contest - Feb 21 - Solution

Fireball Contest – Feb 21 – Solution

Themers:

  • [17a: Another name for the drink Cuba libre]: RUM AND COKE
  • [31a:Brightly colored coral reef dweller]: DAMSEL FISH
  • [41a: What catalog customers fill out]: ORDER FORMS
  • [60a: Play area for children]: RUMPUS ROOM

The title is the hint. Each themer has had the “first off” — namely, the first letter has been taken off, and restoring them gives you the name of a U.S. president, one of whom is a traitorous dictator-wannabe who has been impeached twice:

TRUM AND COKE
ADAMSEL FISH
FORDER FORMS
TRUMPUS ROOM

Put those four missing letters together, and you get William Howard TAFT, our answer, who apparently invented the seventh-inning stretch but did not get stuck in the White House bathtub.

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