TOP OF THE WEEK:

This week a very short story about four guys who grew up on Marymont Park in east Clearwater. Depending on the season, they played basketball, touch football, baseball and volleyball. They went on to be a doctor, a career educator, a business owner and a manager of a high profile Clearwater business who also served as a city commissioner. Today kids, unlike these now 60-somethings, can’t even get into the park. It’s locked tight. The city of Clearwater and its recreation department have lost their way. Parks like Marymont and others are now open to whoever can write a check and no one else – certainly not a kid who just wants to shoot some hoops rather have his nose in a computer – or worse.

Around the Bay –

1. More than a few Oliver Stones in Dunedin are comparing the Tai Chi Society’s purchase of the Fenway Hotel to a similar purchase in Clearwater back about 38 years ago. A bit of a stretch – isn’t it?

2. Is Tarpon Springs about to become the next Kenneth City? All the nonsense over what was a credible plan to improve their aging waterfront has cost them a whole department. Who’s minding the store there?

3. Our Top of the Week can have just as easily included the city of Clearwater’s library system which is falling all over itself – where to put the Countryside and East Libraries plus some new technology that few clients and not all of their staff seem to understand. Who’s minding that store?

4. IRS Update: local conservative Republican gets dreaded letter from IRS – turns out it says we owe you a lot, and we can’t pay you right now. Same conservative Republican gets another IRS letter – turns out the august organization lost all the corporate extension requests said Republican’s hired accounting firm sent them. This is a firm with a thirty year plus history - not some storefront numbers house but you get the idea that the IRS should be operating from a storefront given their current level of competence. Who’s minding that store?

5. Anybody who believes that an agreement between the county and PSTA not to levy property taxes for transportation would mean that the PSTA could not come crawling back for more money is naïve and/or has never attended a governmental meeting or sat on the dais of such a meeting where an agency hasn’t come back saying “we really thought we could do this without your help.” In our lifetimes, we will see PSTA come back and ask for the property tax to be reinstituted whether the ill-conceived Greenlight Pinellas initiative is passed or not.

The Diamond, Media and Other Stuff –

6. A hearty farewell to Steve Otto whose last regular column appears in the Tampa Tribune today (July 13). Otto is arguably the last of the local columnists whose work you read first when you picked up the paper off the porch – along with Howard Troxler, Bob Henderson, and for people as old as your HB (Humble Blogger), – Dick Bothwell and Chuck Albury. One nice thing has happened recently - the reappearance of Diane Steinle on a regular basis in the local section of the Friday Times. Diane, like the others, has her foot and heart planted firmly in her community.

7. No matter how long you watch baseball, you always see something new. Newest for us was Phil’s broadcaster Tom McCarty catching a home run off the bat of the Braves’ Freddie Freeman. In a gimmick, McCarty and his colleagues were broadcasting from the stands in center field and McCarty made the catch with absolutely no effort. We’ve seen a lot of broadcasters catch foul balls but never a home run.

8. Factoid – In 1950, Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra batted 656 times, hit 28 homers and drove in 124 runs while striking out 12 times. In the 10-game period June 27 – July 6, three members of the Atlanta Braves (Chris Johnson, B.J. and Justin Upton) each struck out 12 times or more.

9. In a recent survey of baseball insiders, voted the most overrated manager in major league baseball was – (the envelope please) - Joe Madden. Not sure we disagree.

10. Our Rants and Raves focus group (made up of three old, cranky people) points out that Germany again defeated France – this time in soccer in Brazil where, alas, the United States had already gone home and could not bail out France once again.

IN CLOSING:

Nobody’s perfect - even Hall of Famers. All three managers entering the baseball Hall this month were fired at least once – one three times. Joe Torre was given a pink slip by the New York Mets, St. Louis Cards and the Atlanta Braves. Bobby Cox also was canned by the Braves who were smart enough to hire him back several years later. And Tony LaRussa was fired by the Chicago White Sox. Perhaps there should be an asterisk by LaRussa’s firing as he was fired by that mental giant Hawk Harrelson who inexplicably was the general manager of the White Sox at the time.