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.

(Apologies for the tardiness of this week’s edition. Our ancient PC is on a respirator and a new one is on the way thanks to Jamie Steffens at Ray’s Connecting Point.)

Leading off: here’s an idea for an amendment

Here’s an idea that been swirling around our mostly vacant head for some time – an amendment to the Florida constitution that requires political action committees to spell out in their name what their purpose is. We suggest Committee to Eradicate Freedom of Speech or Coalition to Murder Unborn Children. The second would be a proper name for the scary group “Floridians Protecting Freedom,” which wants to circumvent Florida and U.S. law and amend Florida’s constitution to allow wholesale abortions. It seems anytime, groups want to mask a hidden agenda; they throw Freedom into their title. Freedom for whom? In this case, certainly mot unborn children.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

Summer school plans from the 5:05 Newsletter: A group of Generation Z college freshman said that they are planning on spending this summer in Miami explaining the advantages of Socialism to people who escaped Cuba on a raft.

Quote of the week: “This is a public health crisis,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., who has introduced a bill to ban sports gambling ads, comparing them to once upon-a-time ubiquitous tobacco spots. “What we’ve done is simply displace Joe Camel with this activity.” Not so sure we disagree.

Legal news: Charges dropped against former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum. In a related note, Madoff heirs ask for new trial.

Some of today’s drugs: Farxiga, Leqvio, and Myrbetriq. It makes you think the drug companies haul out the old Scrabble game and try to see how many points they can generate with their drug names, much the same as some parents do with kid’s names in the 21^st century.

This week in 1963 (5/23) NBC purchases the 1963 AFL championship game TV rights for $926,000. By comparison, a single ad in this year’s Super Bowl was $6.5 million.

Sports, media and other stuff:

Although they are not saying why, Chick-fil-A is closing their first store in Atlanta’s Greenbriar Mall. The store opened in 1967. The iconic chain continues to add stores each year and currently has just short of 3000 free standing and mall locations.

Born 100 years ago this week (May 27) was former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

Sports number of the week- 30 years ago. The last time a Canadian team (Montreal) won the Stanley Cup. All Canadian teams have been eliminated this year.

Answer: The Chicago Blackhawks. The question: who was the last pro sport team to put their home games on TV? It happened in 2008.

Idle thoughts from a baseball geek: We wonder when they will start to list pitch violations in box scores. And while we know we can get them 24/7, we miss the batting averages in the Sunday papers.

Polar opposites: last week, the Rays lost their 10^th game of the season while the lifeless Oakland A’s won their 10^th game of the season.

Speaking of which, give it to Athletics’ fans for their creativity. Outside the park, they fashioned a tomato throw featuring pictures of team owner John Fisher, club president Dave Kaval and the Darth Vader of professional sports – Rob Manfred.

Seen on a t-shirt: I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes – she hugged me.

You’re older than dirt if you still refer to a frozen dinner as a TV Dinner – the brand name of early Swanson dinners in the aluminum tray.

…and another thing: MLB and Orlando

A follow up to our two weeks ago (TBR&R 5/7/223) comment on MLB and Orlando; coincidently, a group headed by former Orlando Magic Senior VP Pat Williams has renewed their efforts to bring baseball to Orlando. Needless to say, it has the backing of all the power brokers and the media in central Florida. The group had taken a break during the Covid epidemic, but now is full throttle pushing to bring a relocating or expansion team to the busy area. An interesting statistic presented by the group – if one out of every 200 Orlando area summer tourists attended a MLB game, the team would draw two million before a single local went through the turnstiles. That is a number not matched by either the Rays or Marlins in the last 25 years. Food for thought.

NEXT WEEK: Farrell’s; Two month MLB update; Summer playlist

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