Some nice tributes to Clearwater’s 100^th birthday

It was nice to see the various retrospectives on Clearwater’s 100 years over the past few weeks. We would be remiss if we didn’t single out the Clearwater Gazette which ran a great feature on the Phillie-Clearwater 70-year love story; a neat profile of the venerable Clearwater County Club by Editor Jeff Berlinicke and another on the general sports history of Clearwater with a nod to the organization that first put us on the map – the Clearwater Bombers. If we were to nitpick, it would be with the general piece on the sparkling city that appeared on the opinion page noting some of Clearwater’s not so sparkling aspects – but not one mention of the “S” word which, let’s face it, is the biggest not so sparkling faction in the city. And a paragraph praising our water recreation had no mention of the west coast’s largest fishing fleet, the incredible Pier 60 and the many inlets and bayous that yield snook, trout and silver kings. In a footnote, we were told it was written by a writer with roots in the Northeast. Unfortunately, it read like it.

Around the bay:

1. To further celebrate our anniversary, we did a re-read of Mike Sanders’ Clearwater, a pictorial history – still the defining book on our city by its unofficial city historian.

2. In a related note, Mike’s book, along with several other excellent local history books, is being featured at Clearwater’s libraries this month - give one a read.

3. Warning, you have about another week to enjoy your favorite beach restaurant or other waterside activity until the summer visitors start coming in force – not entirely a bad thing particularly for our economy.

4. Unlike the Strand at Cleveland and MLK, the old First National Bank Building at Cleveland and Osceola does have some work going on – but little progress evident. A construction expert much brighter than us says it is folly to try to retrofit a building over fifty years old. Appears he’s quite right.

5. And, you’ve really lived in Clearwater a long time if you remember the Strand site formerly was the home of Crown Motors – the area’s Chrysler-Plymouth dealer- unrelated to today’s Crown Motor Cars.

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

6. If not for the horse, which seems to be a sweet and gentle thoroughbred, you had to be rooting for Bob Baffert who came so close so many times before winning this year’s Triple Crown with American Pharoah.

7. It isn’t a presidential biography per se; Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic is quite more than just a biography of James Garfield. It deals with the life and death of our 20^th president plus a deranged assassin, an unwilling successor and the role of Alexander Graham Bell in the efforts to save Garfield’s life – just three of the subplots in this well written book.

8. Shouldn’t the Lightning chill out a bit about this prohibition of opposing team jerseys in certain arena sections and not selling tickets to “foreign” addresses? Things like this and the Ray’s cowbells really make the bay area look bush league.

9. Pinellas County’s intrepid sheriff is concerned that less than 25 per cent of barrier islands residents have taken advantage of his super terrific re-entry hang tag to be used after an evacuation. He paints a picture of people whizzing back on the island with their hang tag. Not so fast, sheriff. There’s a little fine print about having other ID (which is all you should need to get to your home). So apparently 75 percent of the affected residents figure “why bother”?

10. Issue: you have a relative in town who wants one of Frenchy’s legendary grouper sandwiches. Problem: it is Memorial Day weekend and traffic to the beach is bumper to bumper. Answer: you do an end run and go to Frenchy’s Outpost on the less-traveled Dunedin Causeway. Same good seafood – only problem, it is mostly outdoors – a little toasty for late spring and summer dining.

Pete Rose, Bobby Knight – one surprisingly in, one amazingly out

The Berlin Wall of baseball hasn’t come down yet, but there are cracks. The addition of Pete Rose to the Fox sports lineup could not have been facilitated without the tacit approval of major league baseball. It’s a coup for Fox – few men understand the intricacies of the game as well as Rose. You can only hope this is the first step to a rightful place in Cooperstown for the hit king. On the other hand, ESPN dumps the one man who probably understands basketball as well as Rose knows baseball – Bobby Knight. This while others, who sometimes don’t even know what players are on the court (see Rants and Raves March 29), live on. Hopefully some enterprising network will retain the services of basketball’s “General”.