New York Times, Monday, February 12, 2018

Well, it's been a while, but it's good to be back. This is my fifth puzzle — my last one ran a little over four years ago, my first one ran in 2010. At this rate, I'll have joined the exclusive "Ten Club" in 2026.

A lot has happened since my last publication — I became a father, I made my way on air as a news anchor and sports announcer, and I met Will Shortz.

Being that I have more on my plate nowadays, I don't submit as often as I once did, but if a good idea crosses my mind, I will try to put it to paper.

This idea just sort of popped into my head one day. I thought it was worth trying it out, but admittedly, I had trouble figuring out theme answers for VISA and DISCOVER. Maybe ELVIS ANDRUS for VISA? Maybe if this were a crossword in Baseball Digest.

Truth is, the suggestion box under the Google search bar is what really helped me with these two. I began typing "ELVIS A" to see what would come up and did the same for "DISCO VER." The results I found seemed like legit answers, and Will apparently agreed.

A couple of cool things I realized recently with this puzzle: by total coincidence, the TEX in VORTEX crosses into RITTER, which is neat. Also by total coincidence, PAPI is at 34-Down, and Big Papi's number was 34 (my favorite jersey number).

Oh, and I'm sure there will be nitpickers out there who will find fault in my lack of MASTERCARD, but that just wasn't gonna happen. As the commercial says, that's for everything else.

Now, these are the kinds of "hidden word" finds I like! It seems a little miraculous that something as long as DISCOVER could span two words of a normal phrase. AMEX is shorter and thus easier to work with, but that X ratchets up the difficulty. And even VISA's VI or VIS is no joke. Three great discoveries made for a great theme, CARDHOLDER a perfect revealer. Delightful!

Made me wonder what other possible themers were out there. VIS A VIS is the obvious one, but that doesn't hold a candle to the awesome ELVIS AND ME. There's NOVI SAD, the Serbian city, but that seems hardly crossworthy — not novice friendly, in any case.

And such a wealth of rare letters in the fill, (mostly) worked in so smoothly! Two Js, three Xs, two Zs, that's way more than a usual puzzle contains. ITEN was a price to pay for the two Zs in OZZY, but I was okay with that trade-off.

The only hesitation I had before giving this the POW! … two crossings that I worried might trip up newer solvers:

• INI / SAW II. Not a great way to start the puzzle, especially cluing INI as a person with a hit from over 20 years ago. But what else could that be? VNI would be an unlikely name, and SAW VI … please, somebody make the franchise stop!
• OJAY / CADY. I think educated solvers ought to at least have heard of Elizabeth CADY Stanton, but I could understand if someone couldn't remember the spelling. OJAI / CADI? Not nearly as correct-looking to my eye, but there is a city named OJAI, so I'd be sympathetic to that error, chalking it up to Mike's fault, not the solver's.

So the J in AJAX is the one rare letter that I didn't think was worth it, leading to a tough crossing that might trip up newer solvers.

But overall, I loved the theme DISCOVERies (I did wonder about MASTERCARD to get the full set, but what are you gonna do?) and 95% of the grid execution.