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.

(Editor’s note – With each edition in 2022, we will lead off our blog with a significant event in history for that week.)

THIS WEEK IN 2007 – THE BIRTH OF THE IPHONE.

USF losing their way

The University of South Florida‘s board of trustees recently gave some marching orders to interim president Rhea Law. Most make sense such as prepping to make the transition to a new president as smooth as possible. But sticking out like a sore thumb on the list is a call for progress on an on-campus football stadium. This would make sense if the football program were a cash cow for the university ala UF or even UCF. The program isn’t even close to what you would call an asset for the university that found it necessary to close down their school of education until faced with a region wide revolt. This is a program that has won three games over the last two years and averaged just over three wins a year over the last four. Their wins this year were over a Division II school and Temple, who fired their coach at season’s end. The financially responsible avenue for USF would be finding a way to either move their program to Division II or a bolder decision to phase out the football program all together – not build an unneeded on-campus stadium.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

January 6 was a golden day for Joe Biden. The anniversary of the disruption in DC gave him a day to blame it all on President Donald Trump while some people forget about worsening inflation, the COVID crisis and his international blunders for a short time. The temporary amnesia won’t last long.

We regret we did not have the required space of 17 paragraphs for outgoing St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman to congratulate himself on a job well done.

We see the wondrous ads from the local gambling casino showing all those winners. The ads never mention breadwinners trying to explain to their families why they are being evicted, having their power turned off or no gas for the car because of that wonderful casino.

Quote of the Week: “(Clearwater City Manager Jeff) Jennings said he brings the advantage of a fresh face without the historical baggage that exists between the city and Scientology.” That is either the height of naivety or hubris – neither of which bodes well for Clearwater.

A Ben and Jerry’s is scheduled to open on Clearwater Beach next week. We won’t be there. Besides their product being unhealthy and overpriced, the company continues their anti-Israeli policies in the Mideast as well as support for radical movements here at home.

Five Years Ago in TBR&R (January 8, 2017): Word on the street is a new buyer for the old 1100 Building at MLK and Cleveland is waiting in the wings to be the building’s savior. Pardon us if we remain skeptical. (Turns out, the 8^th or 9^th time was charmed and the building is up and occupied).

Sidney Portier won an Oscar in 1964 for Lilies of the Field, but many felt he surpassed those performances in 1967’s To Sir with Love and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The heralded actor passed away last week at age 94.

Lighter stuff:

If you’ve already become frustrated with your New Year’s resolutions, fall back to the philosophy most attributed to Benjamin Franklin – weed one garden bed at a time.

The semi-official 5:05 Newsletter reports on an order mix-up: “Last week my online order got mixed up with somebody else's. I ordered a fake vaccination card and they sent me a Hawaiian birth certificate.”

A 2022 oddity occurred in Salinas CA when fraternal twins Aylin and Alfredo Trujillo were born just fifteen minutes apart, but Aylin was born at 11:45 pm December 31 and her twin brother Alfredo fifteen minutes later just after the dawn of 2022 giving them different days, months and years of birth.

It took but one week for one of our bold 2022 predictions to be proven wrong. The University of South Florida gave a two year extension to head football coach Jeff Scott who is 3-18 in his first two years at USF. This continues a series of incomprehensible moves by our alma mater over the past few years (see above).

What’s up with all the piling on of Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh? Outside of each other, there was only one team in the country that beat either of the two college championship finalists.

We have the deepest respect for Buck Showalter. He has won everywhere he’s managed; we simply hate to see him get mixed up in the hot mess that is the New York Mets.

Ad Week’s 2021 Ad of the Year? The delightful Geico “Scoop, There It Is” ad, a spinoff of Atlanta-based Tag Team’s 1993 hit Whoomp (There It Is).

Our unofficial Hall of Fame ballot

Each year we try to assist writers who actually have a Hall of Fame ballot with their selections. This year’s new candidates are mostly a group of players who had nice careers, but fall short of Hall of Fame status. There are two exceptions – Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz, both of whom are tainted by performance enhancing drugs. We sense voters will be more forgiving with Big Papi, as the Red Sox DH was known. Our guess is he will linger a year or two because of the PEDs and the fact he seldom played defense during his career. Being a first ballot selectee is something you reserve for the Aarons, Griffeys and Mantles of the world. With those facts in mind, the writers have to get over themselves and vote in post season stalwart Curt Schilling on his performance, not his politics, baseball’s best all-time left handed reliever Billy Wagner, the best or second best shortstop glove of all time Omar Vizquel and Colorado’s Todd Helton with his career batting average of .316. And the Hall will at least temporarily say good bye to last year on the ballot juicers Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons and Sammy Sosa, which is sad because all three probably could have made the Hall without the chemical assists.

NEXT UP: Unneeded solutions; Lockout effects; Who loves ya?

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