LA Times Crossword Answers 6 Mar 15, Friday

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CROSSWORD SETTER: Steve Marron
THEME: There’s No I in Team … each of today’s themed answers is the name of a sports team, but the letter I has been omitted. Because, “there’s no I in team”.

61A. Sports cliché that explains 17-, 28-, 35- and 47-Across THERE’S NO I IN TEAM

17A. Pennsylvania athletes PTTSBURGH PRATES (Pittsburgh Pirates)
28A. Florida athletes MAM DOLPHNS (Miami Dolphins)
35A. Illinois athletes CHCAGO FRE (Chicago Fire)
47A. Michigan athletes DETROT LONS (Detroit Lions)

BILL BUTLER’S COMPLETION TIME: 16m 38s
ANSWERS I MISSED: 2 … EBW (EEW!!!), Catbert (Cate Ert!!!)

Today’s Wiki-est, Amazonian Googlies
Across

8. Pulley wheel SHEAVE
Even though the word “sheave” is used interchangeably with “pulley”, the sheave is actually the pulley’s grooved wheel, over which runs a rope or belt.

17. Pennsylvania athletes PTTSBURGH PRATES (Pittsburgh Pirates)
The Pittsburgh Pirates (nicknamed the Bucs or Buccos) joined baseball’s National League in 1887 just six years after the league was formed. The Pirates played in the first ever World Series in 1903, and won their first World Series in 1909.

19. “Charlotte’s Web” monogram EBW
Elwyn Brooks (E. B.) White was an American writer. His most famous creations were the children’s stories “Charlotte’s Web” and “Stuart Little”, but he also co-authored the writing guide “The Elements of Style” (usually referred to as “Strunk & White”).

“Charlotte’s Web” is a children’s novel by author E. B. White. Charlotte is a barn spider, who manages to save the life of a pig named Wilbur. Wilbur is a pet pig, owned by the farmer’s daughter, Fern Arable. The story also includes a gluttonous rat called Templeton who provides some light and comical moments.

21. Word of suspicion, to Tweety TAWT
“I tawt I taw a puddy tat!” is a famous line uttered by Tweety Bird, the yellow canary in the “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” cartoons who is constantly stalked by various cats.

26. Langley-based org. CIA
The CIA headquarters is located in Langley, Virginia in a complex called the George Bush Center for Intelligence, named for former Director of the CIA and US President George H. W. Bush.

27. Maritime raptor ERNE
The ern (also erne) is also called the white-tailed eagle, and the sea-eagle.

“Raptor” is a generic term for a bird of prey, one that has talons to grip its victims.

28. Florida athletes MAM DOLPHNS (Miami Dolphins)
The Miami Dolphins football team was founded in 1966 by politician Joe Robbie and the comedian Danny Thomas.

32. Booyah, e.g. STEW
Booyah is a thick soup or stew that is quite common in the Upper Midwest of the US. It is thought that the dish originated in Belgium, with the name “booyah” deriving from the French word “bouillir” meaning “to boil”.

33. Tax shelter initials IRA
Individual Retirement Account (IRA)

34. Gray wrote one in a country churchyard ELEGY
An elegy is a mournful poem or funeral song, also known as a dirge. Perhaps the most famous elegy in the English language is that written by Thomas Gray, completed in 1750. His “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is the source of many oft-quoted phrases, including:

– Celestial fire
– Far from the Madding Crowd
– Kindred spirit

35. Illinois athletes CHCAGO FRE (Chicago Fire)
The Chicago Fire is the name of the city’s professional soccer team. The Fire were founded in 1997, and are named for the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

39. Teatime choice ASSAM
Assam is a state in the very northeast of India, just south of the Himalayas. Assam is noted for its tea as well as its silk.

42. “Un-PC” was added to it in 2014 OED
The “Oxford English Dictionary” (OED) contains over 300,000 “main” entries and 59 million words in total. It is said it would take a single person 120 years to type it out in full. The longest entry for one word in the second edition of the OED is the verb “set”. When the third edition was published in 2007, the longest entry for a single word became the verb “put”. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most-quoted author in the OED is William Shakespeare, with his most quoted work being “Hamlet”. The most-quoted female author is George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans).

To be “un-PC” is to be politically incorrect, not be politically correct (PC).

43. “Take a Chance on Me” group ABBA
I am an unapologetic fan of ABBA’s music. ABBA was of course the Swedish group who topped the charts in the seventies and eighties. The name ABBA is an acronym formed from the first letters of the given names of each of the band members, namely: Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid.

47. Michigan athletes DETROT LONS (Detroit Lions)
The Detroit Lions are the NFL team that plays home games at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. The team was founded way back in 1929 as the Portsmouth Spartans from Portsmouth, Ohio. The Spartans joined the NFL during the Great Depression as other franchises collapsed. However, the Spartans couldn’t command a large enough gate in Portsmouth so the team was sold and relocated to Detroit in 1934.

50. Company headquartered in Trollhättan SAAB
SAAB stands for Svenska Aeroplan AB, which translates into English as Swedish Aeroplane Limited. SAAB was, and still is, mainly an aircraft manufacturer. If you take small hops in Europe you might find yourself on a SAAB passenger plane. The SAAB automotive division was acquired by General Motors in the year 2000, who then sold it to a Dutch concern in 2010. However, SAAB (automotive) finally went bankrupt in 2011. A Chinese consortium purchased the assets of SAAB Automotive in 2012, and so SAAB vehicles are in production again. The new vehicles are using the SAAB name, but cannot use the SAAB griffin logo, the rights to which have been retained by the mother company.

Trollhättan is a city in Sweden located about 75 km north of Gothenburg, in the southwest of the country.

54. “Let it be” STET
“Stet” is a Latin word meaning “let it stand”. In editorial work, the typesetter is instructed to disregard any change previously marked by writing the word “stet” and then underscoring that change with a line of dots or dashes.

60. Düsseldorf distances: Abbr. KMS
The city of Düsseldorf lies in the west of Germany, fairly close to the border with France, and sits on the River Rhine.

65. Family feud VENDETTA
“Vendetta” is the Italian word for a blood feud, and is especially associated with the island of Corsica.

Down
1. Electrical units AMPERES
The unit of electric current is the ampere, abbreviated correctly to “A” rather than “amp”. It is named after French physicist André-Marie Ampère, one of the main scientists responsible for the discovery of electromagnetism.

2. Scott Adams’ Evil Director of Human Resources CATBERT
Dogbert is a character in the Scott Adams comic strip “Dilbert”. Dogbert celebrates his birthday on June 8, which also happens to be the birthday of Scott Adams himself. Dilbert bumps up against a character called Catbert quite a lot. Catbert is the “evil director of human resources” at Dilbert’s place of work.

4. Grafton’s “__ for Ricochet” R IS
Sue Grafton writes detective novels, and her “alphabet series” features the private investigator Kinsey Millhone. She started off with “A Is for Alibi” in 1982 and is working her way through the alphabet, most recently publishing “’W’ is for Wasted” in 2009. Apparently Ms. Grafton is working on her “X is for …” novel, and has already decided that “Z is for Zero” will be the final title in the series. What a clever naming system!

5. Rum desserts BABAS
Rum baba (also “baba au rhum” in French) is a small yeast cake saturated in rum, and sometimes filled with whipped cream. Rum baba is derived from the recipe for the tall “babka” yeast cake that was introduced to the world by the Polish communities. The Polish words “baba” and “babka” mean “old woman” or “grandmother” in English. I guess someone must have thought that all grandmothers were saturated in rum!

6. Post-op areas ICUS
Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

7. Red Sox great Yastrzemski CARL
“Yaz” is the nickname for Carl Yastrzemski, a baseball player who spent his whole career with the Boston Red Sox.

8. The tenth Muse, to Plato SAPPHO
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet born on the Greek island of Lesbos. Sappho was much admired for her work, although very little of it survives today. She was renowned for writing erotic and romantic verse that dealt with the love of women as well as men. It was because of this poetry that the word “lesbian” (someone from Lesbos) is used to describe a gay woman.

Plato wrote the following lines:

Some say the Muses are nine: how careless!
Look, there’s Sappho too, from Lesbos, the tenth.

9. Old TV knob HOR
Remember the “horizontal hold” (HOR) and “vertical hold” (VER) on old TV sets? Our kids have no idea what we had to go through …

10. Proof word ERAT
QED is used at the end of a mathematical proof or a philosophical argument. The QED initialism stands for the Latin “quod erat demonstrandum” meaning “that which was to be demonstrated”.

11. Diplomatic official ATTACHE
Attaché is a French term which literally means “attached”, and is used for a person who is assigned to the administrative staff of some agency or other service. The term is most recognized as it applies to someone assigned to an Ambassador’s staff at an embassy. The word was extended to “attaché case” at the beginning of the twentieth century, meaning a leather case used for carrying papers, perhaps by an attaché at an embassy.

13. “Understanding is a kind of __”: Sagan ECSTASY
Carl Sagan was a brilliant astrophysicist and a great communicator. Sagan was famous for presenting obscure concepts about the cosmos in such a way that we mere mortals could appreciate. He also wrote the novel “Contact” which was adapted into a fascinating 1997 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster.

15. Part of XXL: Abbr. LGE
Extra Extra Large (XXL)

23. Air freshener scent NEW CAR
Most of what we call that “new car smell” comes from adhesives and sealers that are holding together various plastic components in the automobile’s interior. In fact, there is concern in some quarters that the compounds giving new car smell might pose a health risk.

25. Ray or Jay ALER
The Tampa Bay Rays are a relatively “young” franchise, being formed in 1998. The initial name of the franchise was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. While known as the Devil Rays, the team finished last in the league in almost every year. The name was changed to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008, and I am told the Rays started into a streak of winning seasons soon after.

The Toronto Blue Jays baseball franchise was founded in 1977. The Blue Jays are the only team based outside the US to have won a World Series, doing so in 1992 and 1993. And since the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, the Blue Jays are the only Major League Baseball team now headquartered outside of the US.

28. Emcee’s aid MIC
The term “emcee” comes from “MC”, an initialism standing for Master or Mistress of Ceremonies.

29. The Era of __: period in Notre Dame sports lore ARA
Ara Parseghian coached the Notre Dame football team from 1964 to 1974, a period known as “The Era of Ara”.

30. Toon with a cat named Bowser MAGOO
Mr. Quincy Magoo is a wonderful cartoon character voiced by Jim Backus. Backus is probably equally well-known for playing Mr. Magoo as well as Thurston Howell, III on “Gilligan’s Island”. Mr. Magoo first appeared on the screen in a short called “The Ragtime Bear” in 1949. His persona was at least in part based on the antics of W. C. Fields. Backus originally used a fake rubber nose that pinched his nostrils in order to create the distinctive voice, although in time he learned to do the voice without the prop. My absolute favorite appearance by Mr. Magoo is in “Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol”, a true classic from the sixties. There was a movie adaptation of “Mr Magoo” released in 1997, with Leslie Nielsen playing the title role.

36. Health care orgs. HMOS
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

37. Vintner’s prefix OEN-
In Greek mythology Oeno was the goddess of wine, giving us “oen-” as a prefix meaning “wine”. Oenology, for example, is the study of wine.

38. Hose users: Abbr. FDS
Fire department (FD)

39. Words on the Royal Canadian Air Force badge AD ASTRA
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) is also known as the Aviation royale canadienne (ARC). The RCAF is a partner with the USAF in providing protection to the whole of the North American airspace in the arrangement known as NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command). The RCAF’s motto is “Sic Itur as Astra”, which translates from Latin as “Such is the Pathway to the Stars”.

41. “__ of Philadelphia”: Oscar-winning song STREETS
“Streets of Philadelphia” is a song written by Bruce Springsteen for the 1993 film “Philadelphia” starring Tom Hanks as a gay man suffering from AIDS. The song won the Best Original Song Oscar as well as four Grammy Awards.

45. Long-grained Asian rice BASMATI
Basmati is a long grain rice that is commonly used in Indian and Pakistani cuisine. The name “basmati” comes from the Sanskrit word “vasmati” meaning “fragrant”. I am a big fan …

49. Property encumbrance LIEN
A lien is the right that one has to retain or secure someone’s property until a debt is paid.

53. Eiffel’s world MONDE
“Monde” is French for “world”.

Gustave Eiffel was the French civil engineer who famously designed the Eiffel Tower.

57. Fall mo. NOV
November is the eleventh month in our calendar. The name comes from the Latin “novem” meaning “nine”, as November was the ninth month in the ancient Roman calendar.

58. “Mon __!” DIEU
“Mon Dieu” is French for “my God”.

62. Sinusitis-treating MD ENT
Ear, Nose and Throat specialist (ENT)

The suffix “-itis” is used to denote inflammation, as in laryngitis (inflammation of the larynx) and sinusitis (inflammation of the sinuses).

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For the sake of completion, here is a full listing of all the answers:
Across
1. Biting ACERBIC
8. Pulley wheel SHEAVE
14. Beyond enthusiastic MANIACAL
16. __ arch: blood vessel section AORTIC
17. Pennsylvania athletes PTTSBURGH PRATES (Pittsburgh Pirates)
19. “Charlotte’s Web” monogram EBW
20. Like dreamers, often ASLEEP
21. Word of suspicion, to Tweety TAWT
22. Steering aids REINS
24. __ moment AHA
26. Langley-based org. CIA
27. Maritime raptor ERNE
28. Florida athletes MAM DOLPHNS (Miami Dolphins)
32. Booyah, e.g. STEW
33. Tax shelter initials IRA
34. Gray wrote one in a country churchyard ELEGY
35. Illinois athletes CHCAGO FRE (Chicago Fire)
39. Teatime choice ASSAM
42. “Un-PC” was added to it in 2014 OED
43. “Take a Chance on Me” group ABBA
47. Michigan athletes DETROT LONS (Detroit Lions)
50. Company headquartered in Trollhättan SAAB
51. Fizzy prefix AER-
52. Words before hear or see SO I
53. Needing to be picked up MESSY
54. “Let it be” STET
56. Address label words SEND TO
60. Düsseldorf distances: Abbr. KMS
61. Sports cliché that explains 17-, 28-, 35- and 47-Across THERE’S NO I IN TEAM
64. Make final adjustments to, as a concert piano RETUNE
65. Family feud VENDETTA
66. They may be intangible ASSETS
67. Setting piece UTENSIL

Down
1. Electrical units AMPERES
2. Scott Adams’ Evil Director of Human Resources CATBERT
3. Wrap around ENTWINE
4. Grafton’s “__ for Ricochet” R IS
5. Rum desserts BABAS
6. Post-op areas ICUS
7. Red Sox great Yastrzemski CARL
8. The tenth Muse, to Plato SAPPHO
9. Old TV knob HOR
10. Proof word ERAT
11. Diplomatic official ATTACHE
12. Taking in VIEWING
13. “Understanding is a kind of __”: Sagan ECSTASY
15. Part of XXL: Abbr. LGE
18. Proceed HEAD
23. Air freshener scent NEW CAR
25. Ray or Jay ALER
28. Emcee’s aid MIC
29. The Era of __: period in Notre Dame sports lore ARA
30. Toon with a cat named Bowser MAGOO
31. Satisfy PLEASE
36. Health care orgs. HMOS
37. Vintner’s prefix OEN-
38. Hose users: Abbr. FDS
39. Words on the Royal Canadian Air Force badge AD ASTRA
40. Is ready to blow SEETHES
41. “__ of Philadelphia”: Oscar-winning song STREETS
44. Court scores BASKETS
45. Long-grained Asian rice BASMATI
46. Beyond poor ABYSMAL
48. Pre-game decision makers TOSSES
49. Property encumbrance LIEN
53. Eiffel’s world MONDE
55. Level TRUE
57. Fall mo. NOV
58. “Mon __!” DIEU
59. Salon treatment TINT
62. Sinusitis-treating MD ENT
63. Top __ TEN

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