Times: A month later – no change

Remember the Tuesday afternoon massacre a month ago when the St. Pete Times bought and immediately folded their cross the bay rival – The Tampa Tribune – at the cost of well over a hundred jobs? Bay area readers were promised a more balanced approach to reporting and opinions with the demise of the more conservative Tribune. Balanced – hardly – still the same front page coverage of a conservative politician’s perceived missteps while the gaffs of Hillary and her ilk get buried on Page 8 - if –printed at all. Perhaps the Times added a few more syndicated columnists who they may feel are conservative but not a single local columnist of any stature was added to their ranks. So it remains business as usual with Carlton, Romano and Ruth along with a few lefties from south Florida – again promise unfulfilled.

Around Tampa Bay:

1. The more you watch Donald Trump the more you tend to think he is a sleeper agent for the Democratic Party. His presumed opponent is a deeply flawed candidate yet Trump continues to do outlandish things that tend to make you forget what a bad fit Hillary Clinton would be for the oval office.

2. The Tampa Bay Rays have a new employee, Jeff Cogen, who is charged with putting more fans in the seats. Jeff, you’re new here, so we’ll repeat a couple of previous suggestions: maybe not have your front gate Nazis confiscate little Swiss Army knives from guys in their 70s (Rants – Aug. 31, 2014). We probably wouldn’t have a problem with the gatekeepers confiscating those bush league cowbells. But most of all, have your bosses get on the phone with the Marlins and offer them anything short of Archer or Longoria to switch to the vastly more popular (by about five million fans a year) National League (Rants – Dec. 27, 2015). Then when you’ve accomplished that, ask for a big raise.

3. Governor Scott in a T.S. Colin news conference last week mentioned that over a million Floridians have never experienced a serious storm. He’s right – almost two million people did not live in Florida during our last serious storms – and that’s simply the population increase not just new Floridians.

4. In a related note, we quote the Gassman Law Firm’s sign on Court Street almost as often as the 5:05 Club Newsletter. A gem from last week during T.S. Colin – Noah Reads Our Sign.

5. You’ve lived in the bay area a long while if you remember Florida State League teams – the St. Pete Saints (Yankees) and the Tampa Tarpons (Reds). Either name would have been a much better name for our MLB effort than Devil Rays.

The diamond, the media and other stuff:

6. Here are a half dozen baseball names where you don’t need to supply the last name – Babe, Chipper, Cy, Duke, Mickey and Yogi.

7. To show what a litigious society we live in, in the past several months we have been part of class actions because, we bought a dishwasher; bought a ticket from Ticketmaster and received a fax at a business we sold six years ago.

8. Quote of the week: “Never underestimate what a little free food and drink can buy you” – Anon.

9. Watch the current edition of Family Feud and ask yourself if anything seems odd about the show. Oh, while we’re on the subject, the ultra-smooth Richard Dawson was the best of their multiple hosts over the years.

10, It hurts to see two guys who were the faces of their franchise designated for assignment in the same week. Jimmy Rollins was the heart and soul of the Phillies as was Carl Crawford for our local nine.

He, indeed, was the greatest

Mohammed Ali passed away last week at the age of 74 – a victim of Parkinson’s disease. He burst on the scene in the early sixties with a convincing win over the seemingly invincible Sonny Liston and then repeated the feat less than a year later. He went on to beat all comers, but unlike another great heavyweight, the undefeated Rocky Marciano, stayed too long at the fair. It was sad to see a guy who was so great continue on when his skills had obviously diminished. There have been so many opinions that staying on too long helped bring on Parkinson’s or that perhaps the early onset of Parkinson’s is what eroded his abilities. Either way, you would have liked to see him retire undefeated because for many years, he, indeed, was the greatest.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEXT WEEK – WHAT OUR LEGISLATURE MUST DO FOR SAFER ROADS