Tampa Bay Rants and Raves is a weekly airing of national and local politics, sports, lifestyles and nostalgia items from a very politically incorrect viewpoint. As always, beware - some of what is printed here should not be taken literally.

Leading off: He created the sixties soundtrack

From Alpert to Warwick and in all between, the sixties were full of the music of the great Burt Bacharach. He famously teamed with Hal David for many of his compositions as well as Neil Diamond, Elvis Costello and his former wife, Carole Bayer Sager. Besides Herb, Neil, Elvis C, and Dionne, literally hundreds of artists benefited from his sophisticated, often jazz influenced, melodies. Other than possibly Lennon-McCartney, no one influenced the sound of the sixties more than Bacharach. He even reached out to Broadway with Promises, Promises, giving us the title song plus I’ll Never Fall in Love Again and Knowing When to Leave. A few years later, Hollywood called and he gave us Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Burt, who died last week at 94, was a national treasure we will not soon see again.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

We’re shedding tears for the demolition of two 100-year-old buildings in Tampa, one of which housed The Tampa Tribune. And in Atlanta, the Margaret Mitchell home, dating back to 1899, will now be dwarfed by a 30-story commercial building.

Biden visits Tampa last week to “set the stage for his re-election.” Joe, have you looked at the polling numbers? There are not enough phony ballots in the entire free world to get you a second term.

State of the Union – same old, same old – Democrats nodding their heads like lemmings and the Republicans disagreeing vocally with virtually everything. The new Speaker of the House showed a lot more class than his predecessor by not tearing up the copy of Biden’s address.

If we had to bet money on who would be America’s first female President, our money would be on Nikki Haley or the GOP’s rising star, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Factoid: The U.S. President with the highest IQ, despite what Barack Obama will tell you, was John Adams (173), just slightly higher than Thomas Jefferson. The lowest IQ belonged to Ulysses S. Grant. But at 120, he still ranked among the 90^th percentile of Americans.

Long time Pinellas County Commissioner, Bruce Tyndall, passed away at age 86. Bruce served nearly two decades on the Commission.

Ben Griffith, a Navy veteran and retired banker, who with his wife Mary ably assisted your Humble Blogger and Saintly Wife with several real estate transactions over the years, passed away last week at age 88.

This week marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of a true space pioneer – Chuck Yeager.

This week in 1950 (Feb. 16) the longest-running network prime-time game show, "What's My Line" begins on CBS hosted by John Charles Daly.

Sports, media and other stuff:

Holiday preview from the 5:05 Newsletter: If the economy stays the same, we will be dying and hiding potatoes for Easter this year.

Oh, did we miss the Pro Bowl? Darn, that makes 15 years in a row.

Three times – the number of times when Duke and North Carolina have met in this century with neither team being ranked in the Top 25.

Major league baseball writer Keith Law ranks the Ray’s farm system 5^th among the 30 teams. We think he may be a little low in his ranking. First is LA and last is Detroit.

Sports oddity: although the Yankees are considered the cream of the American League, in the last two decades the Astros, Bosox, Rangers, Rays, Royals and the Tigers have won more American League pennants than the Bronx Bombers.

America lost a couple of familiar faces last week – Charles Kimbrough, anchor Jim Dial on Murphy Brown, and Melinda Dillon, the long suffering wife/mother in the beloved Christmas Story. Kimbrough was 86 and Ms. Dillon 83.

…and another thing: The rites of Spring

It’s no more days until pitchers and catchers report! The National League champion Phillies open up camp this week in Clearwater as do their neighbors, the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin. Both teams have made significant improvements to their rosters in post season, but then so have all their rivals in the Eastern Divisions of their respective leagues. The spring schedules are appetizing with the Phils hosting perennial powers like the Yanks, Braves and the Rays. The Blue Jays will also see the same trio in their park plus the two upper Pinellas teams square off against each other a total of eight times – four in each park. By the way, our “can’t miss” 2023 predictions will publish next month.

NEXT UP: Daytona 500; New Hampshire; No, Joe taxes ARE up

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