Established in 2014, Tampa Bay Rants and Raves is a weekly airing of local and national news, sports and memories from a politically incorrect viewpoint.

First thing on our mind:

It’s hard to grasp that here in the heat of summer, the days are actually getting shorter.

Leading off: Last month’s housing market

Year to date, Florida inventory is up almost double, with three and a half months of inventory, again about double a year ago. Sales are down two percent with the average sale price up eight percent, but sale prices are 96 percent of listing price as opposed to 98 percent last year. New listings are up 25 percent from a year ago. Mortgage rates, the anchor the market is dragging, still remain at just under seven percent. Thanks to our friend TL for these stats.

Tampa Bay, politics and notes:

They tried: Give the liberal media credit; they tried to put a positive spin on last week’s presidential debate as the plane flew into the mountain.

Another tip of our cap to Governor DeSantis’ for his strong message to the arts community that taxpayers should not have to fund sexual freak shows.

From an ad promoting amendment three, “Marijuana is already in Florida, let’s make it legal.” So is human trafficking, should we legalize it as well?

Automotive note: We see that again this year the SUV we drive didn’t make the Motor Trend elite list. Just the same, next year we will buy another of the same make and model of the roomy, fuel efficient and trouble free vehicles we have driven for the past 15 years rather than shop by magazine rankings.

Fast food chains have been taking a Bidenomics beating the last couple of years. Now, they are rolling back prices attempting to lure back customers. McDonald’s is among the first with a five buck value meal.

Oddity: Florida has a population of 21.5 million people spread across 67 counties. Georgia, with half that population, has 159 counties.

From the 5:05 Newsletter on the eve of our nation’s birthday: This country is changing faster than I prefer. I went to the grocery store for apple pie and hot dogs and they were in the Ethnic Section.

This week in 1970 (July 4) a new radio show debuts and continues on 54 years later - American Top 40 with Casey Kasem. It is now hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

Sports, media and other notes:

What a Monday night for sports fans last week as the NHL Panthers hold off the Oilers on ABC and over on ESPN, Tennessee wins the college baseball championship. Both were one score games; you don’t get many evenings like that.

Answers: Yankees’ Bobby Richardson and Oilers’ Connor McDavid. Question: what players from the losing team were the only MVPs in MLB (1960) and NHL playoffs (2024)?

Idle thought: not having a race at Daytona on the 4^th of July makes as much sense as scheduling the Indy 500 on Thanksgiving.

Playing pro golf isn’t stressful enough, but nowadays golfers on the tour must deal with gamblers who heckle them if they are not in line for the score the lowlifes bet on.

Tops at the box office this week in 1974 was the Paul Newman, Robert Redford classic The Sting.

Idle musing: We wonder just what percentage of those Dear Abby, Carolyn Hax and Miss Manners, etc. columns are made up.

Related note: Amy Dickenson, who penned “Ask Amy” for over twenty years, concluded the run of her column earlier this month.

As soon as he appeared on the screen, we knew we were in for lots of laughter. Veteran comic actor Martin Mull, 80, passed away last week.  

One last thing: MLB, three months in

We start with a discouraging stat – the Rays are last in home runs but first in homers given up. But there’s still time to recover which cannot be said for the Angels and the four teams we mentioned last month (Athletics, White Sox, Marlins and Rockies). So that means 25 teams are still in the hunt. That will thin by next month’s update and the July trading deadline. Despite a large lead, the Phillies’ key injuries are troubling. But their closest competitor, Atlanta, is missing two-thirds of their outfield. And while they burn us every year, keep an eye on the Padres. In the AL, the Yanks and Orioles are clearly the class of the league with the Guardians hanging in there. We still favor the Brewer’s William Contreras as NL MVP, but we’ve switched teammates in the AL – you can’t ignore the incredible early summer performance of Aaron Judge. Kyle Schwarber is inexplicably one of the finalists for the NL All Star DH, despite one guy leading him in homers, RBIs and hitting 50 points higher; well it is Philadelphia. Finally, if the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal isn’t the starting pitcher for the AL in the All-Star game, there should be an investigation. More after the All Star break and the July 30 trading deadline.

UP NEXT: Clearwater-grown #1; Mike Tomlin; Marina re-do

063024/582

Sorry, time does not permit replies to comments.

Happy Birthday America!