LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

It wasn’t really an Oscar-winning actress we needed last week, it was a left fielder! 147 solvers noticed that symmetrically-placed entries covered eight of the nine positions in baseball:

1-a PELE (P = pitcher)

19-a SUZANNE SOMERS (SS = shortstop)

31-a RICHARD FEYNMAN (RF = right fielder)

45-a COLETTE (C = catcher)

46-a BOB BARR (BB = second baseman)

57-a BIG BILL BROONZY (BBB = third baseman)

73-a CARLOS FUENTES (CF = center fielder)

83-a BONO (B = first baseman)

So we need a left fielder, and the only Best Actress winner who fits the bill is LOUISE FLETCHER, who made her mark as Nurse Ratched in 1975’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” At 78 I hope she’s still got a powerful arm to make that throw home!

Not as tricky as last month’s Week 5, but again riffing off Peter Gordon‘s recent Fireball meta “Capital Capital”: not clear what was theme and what was fill until you figured out the idea, and it links to a familiar but slightly unusual set (unusual here because the positions of first, second and third base are normally abbreviated 1B, 2B and 3B, but here they just used the letter B as many times as indicated. This made catching the baseball position abbrevs. a little tricky). But the title was more helpful than last month’s and Peter’s, so that softened the meta somewhat.

This week’s winner, whose name was chosen randomly from the 147 correct entries received, is Roger Friedman of Annandale, Va. In addition to a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set, Roger will receive a 1-year subscription to Puzzazz’s Year of Puzzles 2013. Next week’s winner will receive the same.

MONTHLY PRIZES:

118 solvers submitted the correct contest answer to all four of April’s challenges (LITTLE WOMEN, TALKING HEADS, INCONSEQUENTIALLY, LOUISE FLETCHER). The following ten lucky and skillful winners, chosen randomly from that group, will receive a MGWCC pen, pencil and notepad set:

Louis Ah — Cupertino, Calif.

Jim Silvestro — Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.

Congratulations to our ten winners, and to everyone who went 4-for-4 in April.

HOW TO MAKE A WEEK 1 META TOUGHER:

Solve it without the instructions! Recomnmended this week for meta-veterans. I’ll even put a little spoiler space so you can go to the .puz right now without reading further.

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THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is one of New York City’s five boroughs. Submit your answer in the form on the left sidebar by Tuesday at noon ET. Note: the submissions form disappears from the site promptly at noon on Tuesday.

To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (2,036 members now!) here.