After one of the greatest – if not the greatest – last day of the regular season in MLB history, let us not forget this: though baseball fans have been debating over the past month whether the Detroit Tigers Justin Verlander should be not only the AL Cy Young award winner but MVP, that the Tampa Bay Rays' Joe Maddon has to Manager of the Year in the American League, and Andrew Friedman Executive of the Year.
Seriously. You will hear it mentioned frequently over the course of the AL Divisional Series about all of the personnel (and salaries) the Rays lost in the off season. They did, so even if they had come up a game short, or been in a one game playoff, the moves this team's management made on and off the field were amazing on their $41 million payroll.
Okay, let' s look back on a really busy day in news yesterday.
The top story was the Florida did execute a man who admittedly killed a police officer some 31 years ago.
The top political story is the announcement that Florida will maintain the date that everyone though they would change for next year's presidential primary – January 31, despite the strong odds they'll lose half of their delegates to the convention in the process.
In St. Petersburg yesterday, before the Rays improbable comeback, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn addressed the Suncoast TIger Bay Club, where in between his witticisms (and lack of anything new to say about a Rays stadium) Buckhorn talked tough about protesters who might get out of hand at next year's Republican National Convention.
And we asked the Mayor about concerns that his new committee charged with loosening the city's many regulations may take a buzzsaw to the city's tree ordinance. He says people are getting alarmed unnecessarily.
This article appears in Sep 29 – Oct 5, 2011.