Times’ takeover of Tribune – disappointing in so many ways

 It isn’t the fact that Florida’s most conservative major daily newspaper is gone. It’s the way it was handled – security people handing out boxes to people who had put in decades at the Trib; a Tribune beat writer for the Lightning being told to come home from New York – at his expense (Times management wisely rethought that one); and yeah, part of it is bay area readers are left with no option but a left wing mouthpiece. You Tribune readers are going to love Daniel Ruth, Elijah Pitts and Sue Carlton. Steve Otto and Tom Jackson, they are not. In one of our very first items in Tampa Rants and Raves over two years ago, we predicted that the bay area would be down to one or no daily newspapers within five years. Frankly, we hoped the survivor would be the Tribune and we thought it would be handled with a lot more class than the Times management exhibited.

Around Tampa Bay:

1. Kudos to the city of Clearwater for their plan to purchase the wetlands adjacent to the campus of the now defunct Clearwater Christian College.

2. In a related note, can’t help thinking what a great business campus the remaining Clearwater Christian College property would make. There are some development challenges there, but what a terrific site.

3. It might have been nice to see Hillsborough County voters at least get a chance to have a voice in whether to tax themselves for transportation improvements. At the same time, we’re pretty sure of the outcome. We continue our love affair with the automobile.

4. A sidebar to our lead item, in the light of all of last Wednesday’s coverage of the bay area’s newspaper shakeup, we jumped for joy when we saw the term RUTHLESS at the bottom of page one. Alas, it wasn’t what we thought it meant.

5. Also related to our lead item, you’ve lived in the bay area a long time if you remember when you had the choice of five daily newspapers – The St. Petersburg Times, unfortunately the sole survivor; The Clearwater Sun which provided great coverage of Upper Pinellas County; The St. Pete Independent and their famous sunshine guarantee; The Tampa Times which offered superb local sports reporting and, of course, the now defunct Tampa Tribune. We hoist a toast to great people like Mike Pride, Mike O’Keefe, Earl Emmons, Tom McEwen, Archie Blount, Ed Haver, Tom Jackson, Steve Otto and hundreds more who entertained and informed us with their prose in the afore mentioned papers.

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

6. Luis Aparicio, Harmon Killebrew, Bill Mazeroski, Phil Rizzuto and Hoyt Wilhelm – five players from the so-called modern era of baseball who most experts agree should not be in baseball’s Hall of Fame. But since they are, two-time MVPs and more deserving players, Roger Maris and Dale Murphy, belong there too.

7. When both teams got off to an 0-9 start, hopeful Braves and Twins fans were wishing that next year will be a repeat of the 1991 “worst to first” classic World Series. Don’t think so.

8. Another item “borrowed” from that literary gem the 5:05 Newsletter: "If I had known 'cuties' were little oranges when my wife asked me to 'bring a few home' I could have avoided all these awkward introductions."

9. Idle observation: good accountants, attorneys, doctors and realtors are worth every darn penny you pay them.

10. Continuing our series of instant success on the record charts, here are another five music acts that hit Number One with their first chart record. They are Sam Cooke, Tommy Edwards, The Four Seasons, Bobbie Gentry and, no surprise here, the super group of the sixties – the Beatles. The songs were You Send Me, It’s All in the Game, Sherry, Ode to Billie Joe and I Want to Hold Your Hand. The Four Seasons would visit the top spot another two times and Beatles an incredible 18 more times.

A somber 20^th anniversary

Twenty years ago this week, ValuJet Flight 592 crashed in the Florida Everglades killing all 110 people on board. The recognized cause of the crash was improperly stowed oxygen generators which started a ferocious blaze which incapacitated the plane’s control systems. The canisters were stowed by a ValuJet vendor – SabreTech. The company was later charged with murder although, for reasons not all that apparent, the charges were later dropped. The underlying cause was very loose maintenance standards by ValuJet which later morphed into AirTran and later was absorbed into Southwest. Now, twenty years later, many aviation experts are drawing comparisons of ValuJet to Allegiant Airlines which flies out of St. Pete-Clearwater Airport and serves 114 airports – mostly smaller ones. The airline, which operates one of the oldest fleets of any carrier as did ValuJet, has been plagued with incidents and has come under heavy scrutiny from the FAA.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK – THE TEAM THAT PUT CLEARWATER ON THE MAP