Tampa Bay Raves and Rants is a weekly airing of national and local politics, sports, lifestyles and nostalgia items from a very politically incorrect viewpoint. As always, beware - much of what is printed here should not be taken literally.

The majority rapidly becoming the minority

Fact: 75 percent of the American voting public supports the requirement that an ID be required to vote – just as it is required to drive or check out a library book. Yet recent Georgia legislation requiring just that has become reason for major league baseball and its pinhead leader Bob Manfred to move this year’s All-Star game out of Atlanta. We doubt Mr. Manfred, who makes guys like Ford Frick, Happy Chandler and Bud Selig look like geniuses, could recite any of the salient points (95 pages worth) of the Georgia legislation. He chose to, instead, bow to pressure from the radical left including our geriatric president and move the game. Georgia’s legislation, by the way, is far more liberal than that of Mr. Biden’s home state of Delaware which allows for no in-person advance voting. Biden’s fellow Democrat, Cobb County Commission Chair Lisa Cupid, put it best saying the president hadn’t taken into account the financial well-being of the people who helped propel him into office five months ago. If you agree with this move by major league baseball, so be it. If you see it for what it is – just another bow to the radical left, please join us in boycotting everything baseball this summer – with the exception of the Atlanta Braves and their city – the harmless victims of this nonsense. Finally, there is  an on-line petition to keep politics out of baseball. If you agree with that proposition, Google Keep Politics out of Baseball and sign it.    

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

1. At “press time,” no decision on the new locale for Atlanta’s All-Star game. It would be only fitting if MLB’s Mr. Manfred and the rest of the village idiots re-located the All-Star game to Minneapolis, Seattle or even Portland – assuming their burned out infrastructures have recovered sufficiently from last year’s riots.

2. At a press conference last week, Joltin’ Joe said he expects to run for re-election in 2024. He is expected to be opposed by Thomas Dewey, oh wait; at least one of them is dead.

3. Elizabeth Warren joins Joltin’ Joe in criticizing the amount of taxes that Amazon pays – taxes they pay under tax laws that were crafted by Warren, Biden and company in the Senate.

4. Speaking of Amazon – their employees at a large Alabama facility are being urged to unionize even though they earn at least twice the minimum wage, and get health, vision and dental care without paying hundreds of dollars in monthly union dues. If the union can sell that, we tip our cap.

5. Iowa Democrat Rita Hart bowed to the inevitable and formally withdrew her challenge of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’election win last year which had been certified by Iowa’s bipartisan state elections board. This ends the efforts of Speaker Pelosi to undo the win. Ms. Pelosi has difficulty understanding she currently runs the House – not the nation.

Sports, media and other stuff:

6. Factoid: the five largest chain restaurants in America are McDonald’s, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell and Burger King.

7. Number of the week – 25 percent. That’s the percentage of annual sales of McDonalds Filet-O-Fish that is consumed in the 40 days just past – Lent.

8. It was unintentional, but this week’s TBR&R has a definite restaurant bent. One more item – another Gulf to Bay chain restaurant casualty is the long time Boston Market restaurant on the east end of the highway.

9. It is easier to name the local radio stations Tedd Webb did not work at than those who did employ the colorful personality over the years. Best known as Jack Harris’ sidekick on WFLA radio, Webb died last week at age 72.

10. As we get ready for an already tainted baseball season and a reported crackdown on foreign substances, we share one of our favorite quips from the late, great pitcher and raconteur Don Sutton, who was often accused of putting a foreign substance on the ball. His reply was everything he put on the ball was proudly made in America.

Achmed’s picks to click in 2021

(Editor’s Note – a lot of advance planning went into this feature, so we are running it. We don’t anticipate much additional baseball coverage through the summer months).

Baseball season is underway and our crack prognosticator and former second to the Great Malenko, Achmed Walled (pronounced wall-ED), has his surefire picks for 2021. First, he predicts that after this season, the ridiculous man on second rule in extra innings will be tossed aside as the worst experiment since the Ford Edsel. In the National League, he predicts the Braves will make it four in a row in the NL’s toughest division – despite their suspect bullpen; in the Central, it could be a four-way tie, but Achmed goes with the Cardinals who always seem to find a way to win. It’s hard to bet against a World Series champ like the NL West’s Dodgers and Achmed will not. The Padres, on paper look like the next best team in the NL and the Mets, suddenly flush with cash, will probably buy their way to the other playoff spot. In the American League, our peerless predictor goes with the chalk pick in the East – the Yankees. He likes the powerhouse lineup of the Twins to take the Central Division and Houston by an eyelash over the Oakland As in the West. His wild card picks in the junior circuit are the aforementioned As and the strong lineup of the White Sox. Achmed feels the Rays lost too much pitching to offset their pedestrian offense and will be staying home in October. And our “it could happen” predictions are a collapse by the Astros (even though he picked them) and a World Series ring for the boys from San Diego despite the great Dodger lineup and pitching staff.

NEXT WEEK: Black eye for National Geographic; Electric Mustang?

Happy Easter!

040421/76-34