Explanation: Six five-letter rhymes for BIRTH are symmetrically located in the grid on the top-right to bottom-left diagonal, more or less. Find an alternate grid entry that satisfies each of those clues: MIRTH to JOY, FIRTH to OLDMAN, GIRTH to RIPS, EARTH to DIRT, PERTH to ADELAIDE, and WORTH to NESTEGG. The initial letters spell out JORDAN, the answer to our meta. My childhood was filled with that illustrious 1990s Bulls team! Also note the BULL at clue 23 in honor of Jordan himself.
Happy Birthday! You share a birthday with my cousin too. Fun puzzle! Impressive amount of meta content squeezed in there! When I googled "famous people born on Feb 17" and saw Michael Jordan was one, I figured that was probably what you were going for because of the shared first name. When I found MIRTH->JOY, seeing that the J was at 1-Across was enough to confirm it for me. PS - I think at 65-Down you want "poet" not "poem."
Believe it or not, the answer was meant to be ED SHEERAN for the longest time, but I just couldn't get any metanism that I liked to work. For future reference, his albums are a bunch of mathematical symbols!
boharr 3s · 2024-02-17T19:18:19.418Z
Happy Birthday, Mikey. Mine was on 2/10, so I'm a week older. Haha. Thanks for the fun puzzle.
the R might be hard to find for sports-illiterate ppl like me... I had TAP/TIPS in that corner and couldn't find for the longest time what my mistake was...
HB Mikey! I moved to Chi-town in 2002, just after MJ and the Bulls dynasty, but was there for the Blackhawks 3 cups and left late 2016 just after your Cubbies finally won the big one!
Joe 🤓11:13 · 2024-02-18T01:59:09.931Z
I went with Ed Sheeran first as a WAG. I saw SMEARON and thought, "Well, let's see..."
I'm an elder millennial statesman, haha. Love that quote!!
Cindy Heisler 2s · 2024-02-18T12:44:05.894Z
Happy Belated Birthday, Mikey! Very nice!
lbray53 3s · 2024-02-18T15:40:00.766Z
I saw threes crosses when I highlighted the rhymers. I was using a red highlighter which of course made me think of Red Cross. The International Committee of the Red Cross was founded on Februrary 17, 1863. (For those who are fact checking, the American Red Cross was not founded until May 21, 1881 by Clara Barton.) This was a tough rabbit hole to dig out of.
spotted the rhyming pairs right away, but needed nudge 2 to get me on track. Not sure why, because ADELAIDE ought to have stood out. Fun stuff, thanks.
Happy birthday, MikeyG! How old are you? Hope you never lose count! :D