This week’s dining tip (see back story in Jan. 1 TBRR) It’s the time of year for holiday vacations and perhaps a trip to your old hometown restaurant. Two must stops for your HB (Humble Blogger) and SW (Saintly Wife) are Bullocks BBQ in her hometown Durham, N.C. and a classic meet and greet joint, Chat-A-Whyle Restaurant, of Bath, NY in the Finger Lakes region. Both still good after all these years.

Rays teardown: don’t get your hopes up

Virtually every observer feels a teardown of the Tampa Bay Rays is inevitable with the Yanks acquisition of Giancarlo Stanton (more on that in a future issue). And most folks think the keys to the rebuild will be Evan Longoria, Chris Archer and closer Alex Colome. The guy who the Rays can best be rid of is Colome. No non-competitive team needs a closer. Ironically, Colome probably will bring the best value. Longoria’s peak value was two years ago; other than his glove, he is sliding backward and won’t bring all that much. The gold standard for returns on starting pitchers is what the White Sox got for Chris Sale last season or the Braves for Shelby Miller the year before. Archer won’t bring that much. The trio will fetch some decent returns but not anything near the foundation of a dynasty.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Doug Jones is the new U.S. Senator from Alabama. The recommendation here is that he enter into a short term lease for his Washington living quarters. He beat a seriously flawed candidate by less than a point and a half. We’re guessing the GOP will offer up a markedly stronger candidate next year.

2. Factoid: Only two men have been on a national ballot five times – FDR (4 presidential runs and an unsuccessful run as a VP candidate in 1920) and Richard Nixon (VP – 1952 and 56; unsuccessful presidential run in 1960 and successful runs in 68 and 72).

3. If you’re old like us, you remember when only police cars, fire trucks and ambulances had flashing lights. Nowadays, it seems everything from repo haulers to rinky dink security companies to ice cream vendors have them - sensory overload.

4. Speaking of police cars, we just completed a 2600 mile motor trip and saw more traffic stops in the stretch from Lawtey to Waldo than the rest of the trip combined. Those two cities, along with Starke, are an embarrassment to the state of Florida.

5. Carolyn Brink was a dear, sweet lady whose function for many years was keeping track of the comings and goings of Clearwater’s city commissioners – the equivalent of herding cats. Mrs. Brink passed away last week. She will be greatly missed.

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

6. Baseball’s newest Hall of Famers are Jack Morris and Allen Trammell – time was when 3.90 ERAs and .285 batting averages didn’t get you in the Hall. We still await two guys who dominated in the 1960s (Roger Maris – two MVPs) and the 1980s (Dale Murphy, again, two MVPs) to receive their due.

7. Shocking that the folks who select teams for college football’s final four at last realize that it’s okay to select two teams from the same conference. Actually, it’s not that shocking when every authoritative poll in the country had one-loss Alabama ranked ahead of two-loss Ohio State.

8. As predicted back in May, (TBRR May 7), there are more layoffs coming at ESPN. This time, however, most of the pink slips are for folks behind the scenes.

9. A thought shared by a member of our TBRR focus group after being chemically assaulted in a restaurant: a woman’s perfume should be discovered, not announced.

10. You’ve lived in Florida a long time if you remember Walt Disney World’s A through E tickets. Our Rants and Raves focus group (now comprised of five old, cranky people) adds you’ve lived in the Sunshine State a while if you remember when the average citizen could afford to go to WDW.

Jimbo Fisher – winning versus $$$

First a fact that many might not be aware of – the winningest Division 1 football program since 1980 is … FSU. And Jimbo Fisher decided to leave that legacy for a few lousy extra million. Know this – he will not have the success at Texas A&M he had in Tallahassee. The reason? Two words - Alabama and Auburn. Supposedly, A&M has one of the finest facilities in the country, and the DeLorean was a pretty car. Maybe you can be rich beyond belief and be satisfied with 8-4 seasons. But then he was rich beyond belief at FSU and had a national championship to boot. And lest we forget, besides the Tide and the Tigers, there’s LSU, Mississippi and Mississippi State. Welcome to the SEC, Jimbo.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK: Wrapping up our year-long tribute to Tom McEwen