October Surprise:
Fox has made no secret of their preference for a McCain-Palin victory in November, But alas, the biggest October surprise has turned out to be a Phillies-Rays World Series.
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How old is the ageless Jamie Moyer of the Phillies? He’s so old he can remember the last time the Phillies won the World Series.
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How young are the Phillies and Rays on average? Even Barack Obama says they’re inexperienced.
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Oops. John McCain slipped up at a campaign rally in referring to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Not the Rays as they have been known this season. But to be fair, most folks in the Tampa/St. Pete area don’t know about the name change either.
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These are heady times for sports fans in the Tampa area. With the NHL Lightning’s season underway and the Rays in the World Series, for the first time ever in October, they get to ignore two local teams at once.
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The New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys have joined up to form a company that will provide food, retail and other services at their new stadiums. And if operations go well, company staff will be free to work for other teams during the postseason.
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There is talk of adding a second NHL team maybe by expansion, in Toronto, Canada, home of the Maple Leafs. Hasn’t the city suffered enough?
(For all you American readers who aren’t hockey fans, the Maple Leafs are the closest thing Canada has to the Cubs. Much beloved, and they haven’t won a championship in over 40 years.)
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California Governor Arnold Schwarenegger, who has been assiduously avoiding the presidential campaign, just announced he will go to Columbus, Ohio on Halloween to campaign for Senator McCain. This way if anyone sees him, Arnold can pretend to be just another guy in a Terminator mask.
From Bill Littlejohn:
“Mr. Blackwell, composer of the annual Worst Dressed List, has passed away at age 86. A football scholarship to the University of Oregon has been established in his name”
(if you are not a Pac-10 fan this may not make sense until you Google pictures. If you are, no further explanation needed.)
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This entry was posted on October 22, 2008 at 12:11 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: Barack Obama, Jamie Moyer, John McCain, Phillies, Rays, World Series
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Left Coast Sports Babe 
October 22, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Whoa! Seems that many “Left Coasters” and most of the fans of baseball have an idea that the Tampa Bay Rays home is in Tampa, FL? I’ve even heard of the ‘the Trop’ as being located in Tampa Bay?
I’m sure you can ‘google-up’ a map of the Tampa Bay Area if you wish, however: Tampa, FL sits on the Hillsboro River and the eastern side of Tampa Bay. St. Petersburg is located at the southern end of Pinellas County, on a peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
Tampa is the home of the NFL Buccaneers and the NHL Lightning. ST. PETERSBURG is the home of the MLB Rays. Growing up in St. Pete in the 60’s was an experience in living with the aged on green benches all over downtown. I moved away in the early 80’s and now that I’m aged… the town has become – younger!
Simply to create wider support and local ‘ownership’ of these professional franchises, they have each chosen to represent the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater area by selecting to use the term “Tampa Bay” as their location. However, when you fly to Tampa to take your seats in The Trop, don’t look for the tilted-topped dome in Tampa Bay… you’ll be swimming with the sharks.
Go Rays, or Devil Rays – just GO!!!
Mike Bush
Santa Barbara (now)