LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Map Quest”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a geographical region of the United States.
Answer: THE OUTER BANKS, found by 166 solvers, 61 of which were solo solves

Quite a SAD (Simple And Difficult) meta last week. Four banks (PNC, Chase, Truist, and Citi bookended our four theme entries, leading (I hoped) to contest answer the OUTER BANKS.

This one didn’t land for everyone; a number of solvers mentioned not even have heard of the region, and others weren’t familiar with one or more of the hidden banks. Another issue was a very strange coincidence: exactly 5 of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball have a stadium whose naming rights belong to a bank, and I happened, by sheer change to use 4 of them for my 4 theme entries! This explains the bizarre entry at 1-Across, added to save the puzzle (it was [Org. that has nothing to do with this puzzle’s meta-answer] for MLB).

Normally I have a rule that if a red herring pops up naturally without my intending it or even being aware of it, then it’s fair game. But when Consigliere pointed it out, and calculated the odds of this happening by chance at 1 in 1,847, I figured I’d better say something.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

Today’s puzzle is Week 4 of 4 in April. Instructions:

This puzzle’s meta answer, which is 12 letters long, is something you might do (to me) if you don’t like this meta.