A weekly look at the Tampa Bay area and national politics from a conservative viewpoint – plus a helping of sports and lifestyle items. Warning: not everything printed here should be taken at face value.

Thank you Judy…and Betty

Talk about the absolute reversal of the gold watch thing. The parting gift as Judy Genshaft steps away from a lasting legacy at USF is $20 million dollars – from her to the school! It was a huge gesture but not really necessary given the leadership and growth she brought to the school over the last two decades. She had a tough act to follow – Betty Castor and she filled those large shoes admirably. We would be hard pressed to find any school in the country with similar strong leadership over the past quarter century. We only hope that USF’s seventh president, Steve Currall, will meet or exceed the quality of leadership that Presidents Castor and Genshaft brought to USF.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Clearwater City Manager Bill Horne has expressed his desire to retire next year. Here’s hoping he delays his retirement until after the March city elections so his successor can be chosen by leaders going forward rather than a lame duck majority of the city council.

2. Clearwater’s municipal marina is scheduled for a much needed makeover across the next 4-5 years. The city facility has suffered from neglect and weak management for more than a decade.

3. Quote of the Week: The coldest winter I ever spent was one summer in San Francisco - unknown.

4. Winds of War and War and Remembrance were two of the most riveting books and later films we ever encountered. The man responsible for those great works along with The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk, died last week at 103.

5. You’ve lived in Pinellas County a long time if you shopped at a Rutland’s Department Store.

Sports, the media and other stuff:

6. Cool ending to the season finale last week of Young Sheldon with its tribute to its mother show – The Big Bang Theory. It’s worth a watch on Primetime on Demand.

7. Interesting poll among major league players recently; they were asked to name the best looking uniforms among their rivals. Traditional looks won out with the Yanks, Dodgers, Braves and Cards making up four of the top five. Surprisingly, the fifth choice was the Mariners – as opposed to other traditional looks like the Cubs and Tigers to name two.

8. Atlanta’s fans are all gaga about the Braves latest quality rookie Austin Riley who flirted with .400 during his first ten days in the majors including two game winning hits. The conversation now is who will be the greater Brave AR (Austin Riley) or RA (Ronald Acuna). The answer is neither. It is Freddie Freeman who is at least two thirds of the way to Cooperstown.

9. Fifty years ago this week, riding at the top of the record charts in the middle of a six week run at number one was 1969’s biggest song – The 5^th Dimension’s Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.

10. This week our season-long feature on the greatest players to wear each number (back story TBRR 3/10/19) comes around to 11. A couple asterisks are needed here. The greatest player to ever wear #11 was Rogers Hornsby – but he only wore it for part of one season. Also Edgar Martinez is in the Hall of Fame and wore the number but you know our bias towards half a player as in designated hitters. The most complete player to wear the number throughout his career was the Red’s incomparable shortstop Barry Larkin.

Shutdown time for 40 TV shows

We recently read a piece in a media-related publication about the cessation of 40 television (or streaming) series. To show how completely out of touch we are, we had viewed only three of the forty – Big Bang Theory, Suits and VEEP. Granted, we had at least heard of some of the others – notably Game of Thrones which is going to have a prequel. We think your HB (Humble Blogger) and SW (Saintly Wife) are the only two people in the universe who not have viewed Game of Thrones. Not all is lost – Suits is going to have a spinoff and the seven main characters on the BBT were each making one million or more per episode, so their financial future is secure for a bit. Soon we’ll all be hearing about next season’s new shows – of which each of us will also view about ten percent or less.

UP NEXT: Clearwater’s drug store; MLB at the 1/3 pole

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