When he isn’t pitching horseshoes with deadlier accuracy than probably anyone else in the world, Alan Francis works for a printing company. Francis is the subject of a front-page profile in the print edition of today’s New York Times. The piece recounts the highlights of his astonishing accomplishments in the sport: a 90% ringer percentage. Fifteen world titles. Mastery of the unorthodox “three-quarter reverse” throwing style. The article includes an audio slide show in which Francis makes it look easy. He’s employed by the Hubbard Company of Defiance, OH, as a purchasing manager. “He works on the second floor in a wood-paneled office, where the smell of ink from the printing room below hangs in the heavy air,” the article declares. The Hubbard Company is a family-owned commercial printing business that also deals in office supplies and record-keeping books for school use. Founded in 1951 as an engraver, it grew in Defiance by acquiring two other local printers and an office supply company. Among its other distinctions, it is the only printing company in America that can boast of having someone on staff who can ring a pin nine times out of 10 with a 2.5-lb. horseshoe from 40' away.