OK Spectrum, step up

We recently viewed a special on Bay News 9 on the plight of Puerto Rico after last year’s hurricanes. Host Veronica Cintron was quick to point out government delays leaving many homes without roofs. If Bay News 9 and Spectrum are so concerned about these folks, why not stroke a check from their enormous reserves they gain as a semi-monopoly and help these folks out? Many of us have aided relief efforts through our churches and synagogues; why not them?

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Related to our lead item, Spectrum has announced yet another rate increase, piling on after their “all digital” scam added seven bucks to the cost of virtually every TV in your household.

2. Post-election note: those folks who strongly opposed the show-up and get it restoration of voting rights to felons can probably take solace in the fact that most felons didn’t vote before their crimes and probably won’t vote going forward.

3. The re-focusing of the northwest corner of Gulf to Bay and Belcher appears to be nearing completion with the announcement that Lucky Market, which has connections to Kroger, will be filling the old Albertsons location. Bealls and West Marine previously took over the adjacent K Mart location.

4. Tampa Heights Elementary – now there’s an inspiring name that probably took all of five minutes to dream up.

5. Breaking health news from the 5:05 Newsletter: Dunkin' Donuts announced next year they will shorten their name from Dunkin' Donuts to just “Dunkin'.” And their customers will shorten the name of their disease from diabetes to just “betes.”

Sports, the media and other stuff:

6. Cool piece on Channel 8 News last week on the Noyes family who celebrated what would have been their Mom’s 90^th birthday by giving out the fixings for Thanksgiving dinners to 90 families – an annual tradition that grows by one each year. Mary Noyes was the music teacher at St. Cecelia School for over thirty years.

7. Don’t know what UCF did to tick off Tom Jones leading him to write an article trashing a program that won something like twenty straight. Worse was his suggestion that there be a “little” nation championship every year. To carry that to the extreme, just schedule Alabama-Clemson every Jan. 1 and let the rest play for the scraps.

8. Idle thought – came across one of those annoying pop-ups on the internet titled “What food not to eat in a Chinese restaurant”. Our immediate thought was – everything.

9. A month ago (TBRR 10/28/18) we commented on the Rays losing some valuable coaching assets. Now another probable future manager, Jared Sandberg, has headed for the west coast and a position with the Mariners.

10. The guys who set sports odds don’t see much difference in contending teams next baseball season. They have Boston and Houston as the teams to beat with the Yanks and Dodgers just behind. A lot could change depending on where people with names like Corbin, Harper, Machado and Realmuto wind up by next spring.

Our very unofficial Hall of Fame ballot

We have almost two months until the 2019 Hall of Fame class is announced, but we decided to do our very unofficial voting early. As we mentioned earlier (TBRR 1/7/18), there were three locks over the next three years. Chipper Jones took his place this year; Derek Jeter will do the same in 2020. The year 2019 belongs to the game’s greatest reliever, Mario Rivera. Joining “Mo” on our ballot are the game’s best left handed reliever, Billy Wagner, clutch post season hurler Andy Pettitte, consistently excellent Mike Mussina, fielding wizard Omar Vizquel and sweet swinging Todd Helton. Edgar Martinez will probably make it on his last ballot, but our ballot rules are one-dimensional (read DH) and juicing (read Bonds, Sosa et al) players need not apply.

UP NEXT: Apple junk; St. Pete’s five cent bag; Roger’s House

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