TOP OF THE WEEK:

Is it just our imagination or do we tend to lose legendary folks in clusters? Just over the last month, we’ve lost a football icon – Chuck Noll; two baseball legends – Don Zimmer and Tony Gwynn and the king of the countdown – Kasey Casem. We’re no doubt overlooking others. It is probably an element of aging when so many people who were part of your growing up years depart. Granted Noll, Casem and Zim were all in their eighties – good full lives, but Tony at 54 – way too soon for one of baseball’s purest hitters of all time.

THIS WEEK’S TEN:

Around the Bay –

1. Not a particularly good week for the left. Obama gets his hand slapped by the Supreme Court over his cavalier method of appointments and in Massachusetts a freedom of speech win for the pro-life movement.

2. Already there are rumors of at least one political hack seeking the seat Pam Dubov will vacate in the Property Appraisers Office come 2016. We’re hoping that someone with better qualifications than our family cat will surface between now and then.

3. You never like to see uncontested races for political office as they tend to allow mediocre candidates to sneak in and then become mediocre incumbents in the next election cycle. Such is not the case in Dunedin where, despite uncontested races, three solid candidates in Deborah Kynes, Bruce Livingston and John Tornga will take office. Only Kynes has held elective office previously, but the two gentlemen know their community well and will do Dunedin proud.

4. The Mayor’s race in Dunedin will be contested between current city commissioners Julie Bujalski and Julie Scales. So at least we know the next mayor will be named Julie. The nod should go to Scales who has a greater breadth of knowledge concerning her community and its issues.

5. Inquiring Rants/Raves readers ask why our focus group (which consists of three old, cranky people) always shows a margin of error of 50%. It depends on how many of the three have taken their meds on that particular day.

The Diamond, the Media and Other Stuff –

6. Factoid: Baseball player standing 5 feet 10 inches tall, playing weight 170 pounds - a banjo hitting second baseman? Nope, that was the playing weight and height of Willie Mays - one of the greatest sluggers of all time. Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron weren’t much bigger.

7. Congratulations to friends of your HB (Humble Blogger) on the birth of their son this past week. He joins his two-year-old sister Addison as part of their growing family. Addison was named after part of the iconic intersection (W. Addison and N. Clark Streets) where Wrigley Field sits. Regretfully, the young man was not named Clark – the other part of the famed intersection. Good name – worked well for a guy with the last name of Kent.

8. Are there really people who keep track of whom Tom Cruise, Katy Perry or Pedro Godoy are married to this week? Wasn’t it easier to try to recall who Jimmy Stewart, Bob Newhart or Eli Wallach were currently married to? The answer was always the same - the woman they married over a half a century ago.

9. The Atlanta Braves post season hopes were shaky enough with four front line pitchers on the DL, but with Craig Kimbrel no longer quite being “Mr. Automatic”, the Braves are looking for extra bullpen help.

10. Doesn’t a little part of all of us want to see Johnny Football return the Browns to the status they held in the fifties and early sixties – the days of Jim Brown, Otto Graham and Lou Groza? Well maybe not, if you’re a Bengals or Raven’s fan.

IN CLOSING:

The smile on our face this week is because your HB (Humble Blogger) no longer has to share the love of his life with several hundred kids, parents and assorted educators. She retires this week after 30 plus years as a teacher and administrator – the majority of those years at one of the county’s (and country’s) best schools where she worked with some incredible educators. I know she is proud of her role and her influence on thousands of young people who still stop her in the mall or the grocery store for a hug. Her family is even prouder.