Where to retire?

One of the things we permit to arrive in our email daily is Everyday Health which offers some helpful ideas on healthier living without an overabundance of commercial content or “way out there” medical advice. The email recently touted eight places best suited for retirement. This particular piece triggered our “way out there” alarm. Among the places cited were Okinawa, Ikaria in Greece, Costa Rica and, get this, New York City! In order, way too distant, very shaky economy, nice place to visit but… and couldn’t you find any place more expensive? There was one Florida locale mentioned – Gainesville with its great medical reputation plus the university. As for us, we’ll take the bay area, thank you.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Clearwater voters chose wisely sending veteran policy maker Hoyt Hamilton and Clearwater native David Allbritton by overwhelming margins to seats on their city council.

2. Two years hence, Allbritton and Hamilton will be getting at least two new fellow council members with three seats up for grabs and the mayor and council member Doreen Caudell termed out. Word on the street is former mayor Frank Hibbard might seek a return to the center seat with at least one former council member also weighing a return. First term council member Bob Cundiff is eligible to run again.

3. Quote of the Week: “Keep on marching and keep on speaking out." Senator Bill Nelson to a rally of high school students. Our response to Sen. Nelson: stop talking and do something.

4. As alluded to late last year, (TBRR 10/15/17) some 30,000 people will be out of work as Toys ‘R’ Us seeks to liquidate its U.S. holdings, another brick and mortar victim of the internet.

5. You’ve lived in the bay area a long time if you dined at Tampa’s famous Los Novedades which dated back to the 1890s and closed its doors in the early 1970s.

Sports, the media and other stuff:

6. “Stephen Hawking was a giant of theoretical physics who bridged the divide between science and popular culture” – from Great Britain’s The Independent. It’s sad that perhaps the greatest scientific mind since Einstein was known as much for his appearances on The Big Bang Theory as he was for his work as a distinguished physicist. He was 76.

7. Tiger didn’t win the Valspar, but his remaining in contention all weekend was a big win for the sport.

8. Quote of the week: 'The 15,000, 18,000 people a night that we get is comparable to 75,000 people a night in Manhattan. We are a smaller community and that's okay’ - the words of Rays’ CEO Brian Auld. 18,000? The last year the Rays averaged 18,000 was 2013. They have the lowest attendance in baseball by over a quarter million fans yearly.

9. Admit it – you had never heard of the University of Maryland Baltimore County until last Friday night.

10. The Blue Jays will retire Roy Halladay’s #32 before their home opener next week against the Yanks. Next step for the late Blue Jay ace will be Cooperstown – maybe not on the first ballot but his 203 career wins versus only 105 losses put him in a rare stratum of modern day pitchers.

In baseball, like everywhere else, hogs get slaughtered

There were three noteworthy MLB signings over the past couple weeks – Carlos Gonzalez with the Rockies for 8 million dollars; Jonathon Lucroy with the A’s for 6.5 million and Mike Moustakas rejoining the Royals for 5.5 million. The amounts are slightly more than each of us will pocket this year. But these gentlemen earlier turned down three year deals of 45 million, 21 million and 45 million respectively – wanting yet more than that. The phrase has been attributed to Mark Cuban, Bruce Williams and numerous folks on Wall Street. Pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered – if you can call a multi-million dollar deal for a year’s work getting slaughtered.

UP NEXT: Our baseball soothsayer, Achmed Walled (pronounced wall-ED) predicts