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

Tampa or St. Pete – best Rays’ location? Neither

2027 – a year to keep in mind. Just five years from now, the Tampa Bay Rays no longer have to play in the dungeon known as the Trop or anywhere in St. Pete – or Tampa or even Florida. They will be officially free agents, who like players, can see who wants to open their wallets the widest – perhaps Charlotte, Nashville, San Antonio or, heaven forbid, Montreal? And the sad truth is it would most likely be best for baseball, not to mention the Rays’ carpetbagger owners, to move elsewhere as Florida has proven to be a lousy baseball market (see below). And give credit to Gov. Ron DeSantis who vetoed a $35 million gift for a new training facility in Pasco County to a team who might not even be here in five years.

Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

Related to our lead article, this year, the two Florida MLB teams are 27^th and 29^th among the 30 teams in attendance. Last year, it was 28^th and 30^th, with the Rays edging out the Marlins both years. This year, nine teams have already drawn more fans than either the Rays’ or Marlins’ total attendance from last year.

Quote of the week: “If you notice, until gas prices started going up,” Biden said, “things were much more, they were much more optimistic.” - or ungarbling his syntax, much more optimistic until Biden took office.

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) joins the cadre of Democratic elitists suggesting that families struggling with the price of gas buy an electric vehicle (average price $55,000) thereby avoiding the pumps. Even at today’s Biden gas prices, you would have to drive that car just less than twenty years to break even. Talk about clueless and out of touch with her country.

TBR&R Energy News: Biden to give gas tax vacation of approximately 18 cents a gallon. That will almost cover the price increase of 25 cents the first two months he was in office.

What’s up with Clearwater’s new city manager? The politician turned city manager blew in from New England less than a year ago and cozied up with Scientology, decided to micromanage the extremely profitable gas department and made several other unnecessary changes before figuring out where Highland Avenue is. The average shelf life of a city manager is around seven years - with Jon Jennings we’ll take the under.

Election update from the 5:05 Newsletter: Concerns were again raised over Georgia’s election integrity last month when Joe Biden received 20 million votes for Governor of Georgia.

June 24, 2022 – a date to remember – when the United States joined 188 other civilized nations that severely restrict taking the life of an unborn child.

Sports, media and other stuff:

Way cool! Delta is offering a Sky Miles American Express credit card made from the skin of a retired Boeing 747 – complete with first flight, last flight info and number of miles the jumbo flew (68,000,000). The bad news, it carries a hefty $550 annual fee.

The show only runs a half hour on Sunday at 2 p.m., but it is well worth a listen. It’s Newsmax’ What in the World with Rob Carson. It is one of the best half-hours of satirical reporting on TV. Why this guy is only on TV once a week is beyond us. He also has a radio show you can stream. Give him a listen.

Idle thought: what if the pioneering architects of baseball created a rule that hitters had to bat alphabetically. You’d have lead-off hitters like Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra. Batting at the bottom of the order would have been Carl Yastrzemski, Dave Winfield and Billy and Ted Williams.

An item we borrowed from a family friend – In the Shower: Makes extensive to-do list with deadlines and financial costs. Out of the Shower: Can’t remember what day it is.

Earlier this year, we mentioned the Lake Clearwater near Paisley, Florida and the Clearwater River in Idaho. Additionally there are 16 states that have cities named Clearwater and two states that have Clearwater Counties – Idaho and Minnesota.

Two noted journalists, two good books

Coming on the heels of each other, Chris Wallace’s Count Down Bin Laden and Bill O’Reilly’s Killing the Killers give you a solid look at the War on Terror. Wallace’s second countdown book after 1945 focuses almost entirely on the campaign to eradicate Bin Laden and gives you great insights into the people involved from Obama, Panetta down to a dog named Cairo who you will fall in love with. Like other books in his Killing franchise, O’Reilly’s book is superbly researched. It gives more of an overview of operations against many of the bad guys in that part of the world – ruthless killers all as well as the tragic story of how our nation failed human rights worker Kayla Mueller. It appears Wallace is starting his own Countdown series while O’Reilly continues to crank out well-crafted historical works – two of the best non-fiction books of 2022.

NEXT UP: MLB Update; Proctor meet Gamble; Roe v Wade

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