Congratulations are due this morning to the Tampa Bay Rays, who one month into the six-month grind that is the regular Major League Baseball season, possess the best record in the game (albeit just .12 percent above the Los Angeles Dodgers).
And although nobody would like to characterize it as such, the Rays' chances of making the (expanded) playoffs this year grew last night when New York Yankee relief stud Mariano Rivera's right knee buckled in Kansas City, tearing his interior cruciate ligament in that knee, putting him out for the season.
My sympathies are with Yankee Nation this morning. As a San Francisco Giant fan, I became sad this morning upon reading that their best hitter on a weak-assed hitting club, Pablo Sandoval, broke a bone in his left hand and will be out for 4-6 weeks. And the Giants already lost their star closer, Brian Wilson, for the season.
Of course, Rays' fans will counter with the fact that their best player, Evan Longoria, is also out for a long stretch with a hamstring pull. The fact that they didn't lose a beat this week shows strength – but can they keep it up? Well, you've got the .500 hitting Oakland A's coming in this weekend to the Trop. Plenty of good seats are still available.
On to politics – Mitt Romney is back even with Barack Obama in Florida – as crucial a state as any is for the Republicans to take back the White House this November.
The Tampa City Council approved a new and improved "Event Zone" part of downtown Tampa for protesters at this summer's RNC – but there are plenty of folks in town who don't approve, including two Council members.
On Wednesday night, Cl hung out with over a hundred of Tampa's best and brightest listening to Bob Buckhorn, Mark Sharpe and Mike Suarez kick it for a couple of hours on a variety of issues, including what to do about the "bums" downtown, as one local citizen referred to the situation.
It was two weeks ago today that the world observed the two-year anniversary of the BP oil spill. In our featured story in CL this week, we look at what's the story now going on in the Gulf.
This article appears in May 3-9, 2012.