TBR&R is a weekly airing of national and local politics, sports and lifestyle items from a very politically incorrect viewpoint. As always, beware - certain accounts printed here should not be taken literally.

The sports nickname games begin

The Washington Vanilla football team is the first to cave in the tidal wave of political over-correctness cascading on the world of sports. Dan Snyder the Washington owner, who has been the target of so many anti-Semitic insults from the far left (hardly ever reported), has finally thrown in the towel after being pressured by corporate sponsors FedEx, Nike, Pepsi and Bank of America to name just four (more on that below). Next in the set of dominos will be the Cleveland Indians who have already ditched their Chief Wahoo logo. If the whack jobs promoting all this PC garbage actually looked at the Cleveland franchise, they would see possibly the most progressive franchise in baseball history – first Black player in their league, first Black manager and first Latin players. But the progressive police target the Cleveland nickname while overlooking franchises like the Boston Red Sox who stalled for over twelve years after the color line was broken to add a Black player.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. Do you have the feeling that Florida with its mounting virus numbers may have to go the way of California and start shutting down restaurants, bars, gyms and churches again? It may be necessary, but you shudder to think of doing anything that California does.

2. From our “glass house” department, a quote from “Florida’s Best Newspaper” on paycheck protection loans: The Florida Chamber of Commerce, one of the primary backers of Republicans in Florida, received up to $350,000. It should be pointed out that “FBN” one of the primary backers of Democrats in Florida received over twenty times that amount - $8.5 million dollars to be precise.

3. Idle election thought: entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s endorsement of Joe Biden is disappointing. On the other hand, Cuban is a bit of a wild card, but can’t help thinking he’d be a better chief executive than either Biden or Trump – unless, of course, my friend Joe (no, not that B name) runs.

4. Number of the week: 9200 – the numerical advantage of registered Democratic voters versus Republicans in Pinellas County. There are almost 200,000 non-aligned potential voters in Pinellas according to this month’s numbers from the Supervisor of Elections as we near next month’s primaries.

5. From the latest 5:05 Newsletter: History Thought: I'm just curious. For all the millennials who would erase Southern heritage to signal your virtue, I have just one question: How many of you drive a Volkswagen?

Sports, media and other stuff:

6. He was one of the area’s leading foot specialists for years in addition to a community volunteer in Rotary, the Boy Scouts and other organizations. Dr. Scott Hale passed away last week at age 91. He and his charitable efforts will be missed.

7. A few weeks back (TBR&R 6/7/20) we mentioned some nice discoveries on television to ease the tedium of our self-imposed isolation. We add a few more that we’ve found entertaining - Bosch, Goliath and the quirky Burn Notice. Only downside is you have to have access to Amazon Prime to enjoy a few of these shows.

8. Baseball begins its bizarre 60-game season this week. The cynic in us wonders how many team personnel will have to be affected by the Corona virus before they shut it down. By the way, with the weird scheduling, the toughest early season schedules belong to the Yanks and Braves; the easiest to the Reds and the World Series champion Nationals.

9. A follow-up to our “Mount Rushmore” of starting pitchers (TBR&R 6/7/20) – here are five pitchers who we would have liked to see have a full career without some debilitating injury: Cleveland’s Herb Score, Houston’s J.R. Richard, the Cubs’ Kerry Wood, the Braves’ Steve Avery and the Tigers’ Mark “the Bird” Fidrych.

10. Five Years Ago in TBR&R (7/19/15): Tale of two counties: Hillsborough County wisely continues their moratorium on “pain management” clinics while Pinellas drops theirs. Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri says the county is “virtually pill mill free”. Sheriff, we’ll give you the name, address and phone number of a pill mill operating in downtown Clearwater any time you want. (Update – it’s still there).

In our small way, time to strike back

In our lead article, we mentioned four major corporations who put the squeeze on the Washington Redskins to change their name. Perhaps it’s time to say we don’t like your very selective political correctness. Let’s start with Bank of America. They pressure the Redskins, but have no trouble marketing a credit card complete with the Atlanta Braves logo, including a tomahawk to us. We’ve cancelled the card. Nike does so much that’s offensive to a person with a social conscience that we’d never buy any of their products. Pepsi is a poor second to Coke in the minds of Americans, so boycotting them is simply a favor to our taste buds. We dine out a lot, so if the only choices at the restaurant are Pepsi products, it’s water with lemon, please. Granted, these are small gestures, but if multiplied by 100 or 1000 or 10,000 perhaps corporate America would get the message – leave our sports icons alone.

UP NEXT: Brenda & Karen; Clearwater’s radio station; Gerontocracy

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