Frank Gianelli, sports editor of Phoenix's biggest daily, the morning Arizona Republic (circ. 148,645), loves his job but can't stand copycats. There was a copycat in town too: Phoenix's youngest daily, the seven-month-old Evening American (26,000). Gianelli noticed that whenever the Republic printed the box score of a game between big-league baseball teams now spring-training in sunny Arizona, so did the American—same box score, same head, same type, same everything.
It was an easy swipe for the American, which prints by the offset process; all the paper had to do was cut out a Republic...