May 12, 2008

Thinking Out Loud: The Legend of Carnac Ted Keeps Growing

ST. PETERSBURG - I have to give all due credit to my radio co-host, Althea Pashman, for without her I would not know how much I am ahead of the curve.

Over the years I have written things others have touched on days or weeks later. You take a little pride in knowing you had an idea first. In recent times I have syndicated my columns to preserve what has now become more commonplace.

A few columns ago I tooted my own horn because I penned the following:

If Pat Riley can fire Stan Van Gundy for winning, the least he can do is fire himself for doing the opposite. It's not like he doesn't have options, like with L'Oréal or Garnier, more than he gave his former coach who now has the Magic one win away from advancing to the next round of the playoffs.

24-hours later, Riley stepped down (SEE COLUMN)

But it happened again, and again, all in close proximity to each other.

On my show, Speaking of Sports, I lashed out just after nine in the a.m. this past Saturday about Hulk Hogan, nee Terry Gene Bollea, and his whatever-rag atop his rather hairless skull inside a court of law the day before.

The bald-bandana, appropriately jet black considering what he son had just pleaded guilty to, was never removed nor was he asked to by anyone including the judge. There was some speculation that it would have created a scene and no one wanted that, now did they?

About three hours later, there it was on TBO.com, a story about a "formal black" do-rag with an explanation that it wasn't noticed at the time.

Huh?

The Hulkster is 6-foot-7, around 300 alleged steroid inflated pounds and no one noticed him? Ever hear of lakefront property in Arizona?

That is another story for another time but here was little old' me pointing out something that appeared elsewhere like it was somehow their exclusive.

But I digress.

Althea sent me a link to a story that appeared on a TampaBay.com blog, dated the 12th of May. It was titled The original Tropicana Field. Nice story except something was written on November 17, 2007 by yours truly with a picture that I had in my possession accompanying the piece.

TampaBay.com is owned by the St. Petersburg Times but when I saw the line, "The St. Petersburg Times has unearthed a preliminary design for Tropicana Field that included outdoor seating with a tent roof to shield both the field and fans from the weather," I had to wonder what took them so long?

Obviously they have more resources than I, in fact one of their writer's paycheck about covers my yearly budget, but it took this mega-paper nearly six months to "unearth" something I already had?

You be the judge.

This was the story that was syndicated by SportzNutz last November, before the new stadium design was unveiled by the Rays: Could It Be Back to the Future in Rays' Quest For New Downtown Stadium?

Then you have TampaBay.com's The Original Tropicana Field.

I don't mind though.

Even though one of the Times' sports writers think I am some sort of boob taking some of his space on this planet, it's the gratification I get each time someone actually follows my lead.

Maybe that's what grinds his gears so much.

I may just be in the right place at the right time to come up with some of this but you know that is how Pulitzer Prizes are won.

Not that I didn't have to use my spell check for Pulitzer.