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.

The Moonraker II – a study in sociology

Perhaps you’ve read the story of the Moonraker II. In brief, guy and dad buy a boat as a project. Dad dies, money becomes short for a guy with a large family to support. While taking it to a Tampa boat yard, bad things happened. Bottom line, it is sunk off the Howard Franklin Bridge. The guy who owns it has done everything within his limited means to rectify the problem. Hillsborough County steps in and is slowly moving towards removing the vessel. Meanwhile, the silk stocking crowd that owns homes along the water front is up in arms with one princess whining she can see the half sunk boat from every window in her home. Lady, do you know how many people would like to have a home where they could see the water from every window? Buck up, if the boat is the biggest problem in your life, we’d say life isn’t all that bad – particularly compared to the poor guy who’s facing thousands to get what had been a dream of his and his late dad removed.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. The Hillsborough County School System’s top dog, Jeff Eakins, has announced he will retire next year. One can easily understand why – he is saddled with the most dysfunctional government body in the area – save for a couple small Pinellas beach communities.

2. Speaking of beach communities, Treasure Island functionaries have voted to extend last call in that mighty city to 3 a.m. Can’t see any problems coming out of that!

3. Two recent events have made us temporarily scratch two items off our bucket list – Trump’s Cuba travel ban and the cancellation of Tampa to Iceland flights by Icelandic Airlines.

4. Virtually every poll has virtually every Democrat beating Donald Trump in 2020. Get back to us next November.

5. You’ve lived in Pinellas County a long time if you remember when Edgewater Drive in Dunedin was a brick road.

Sports, the media and other stuff:

6. Some baseball/local history – 58 years ago this week, Roger Maris moved seven games ahead of Babe Ruth’s pace in the Babe’s 60 home run season when Maris slammed number 25 off Kansas City’s Jim Archer – the same Jim Archer who years later who would serve as a Tarpon Springs city commissioner.

7. Number of the week – 532,000, the Rays’ total attendance for the season as we approach the half way mark – or slightly more than four times what the Phillies and Braves drew in a three game series last weekend.

8. Another cool baseball nickname – this one for veteran relief pitcher Mark Rzepczynski – “Scrabble”.

9. Factoid: with a Stanley Cup appearance by one of the “original six”, you might recall when there were only six NHL teams and each team had exclusive bargaining rights with any player who lived within 50 miles of its home stadium – a definite advantage for the Canadian teams in the early days.

10. This week our best by number feature (see back story in TBRR 3/10/19) comes around to sweet 16 and there was nothing sweeter for a Yankee fan than watching opposing batters baffled by the assortment of speed and location served up by Whitey Ford. Some other pretty fair country pitchers wore the number like Ted Lyons and Hal Newhouser, but the guy who still holds more World Series pitching records than any other pitcher owns the rights to number 16.

Rays to Montreal, much, much ado about nothing

Do not, repeat do not make travel plans to see your beloved Rays in Montreal any time soon. If ever a baseball event deserved the term red herring, this is it. But this shot across the bow might get people like St. Pete’s Kriseman, Hillsborough’s Hagan and others off their high horses and around the bargaining table working towards a solution involving the region and the Rays. Hint, it starts with realizing that Hillsborough is the only feasible location for a stadium. But forget about Montreal as a shared site for the Rays. The player’s association and, most likely, the owners will swat that one right out of the park.

Next Up: The Lark; Rog, Murph and Billy; Goodbye Clearwater Beach

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