The Loop

Baseball tips in aisle 7

Everybody in the Rochester area knows that you never know who you’ll see when you stroll into Wegmans.

It could be a celebrity, an athlete, an ex or a politician. As Wegmans expands through the Northeast and beyond, so does its legendary people watching and spotting.

Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor, this week wrote about Charlie Manuel, the winningest manager in Philadelphia Phillies history.

Tim explains Charlie was such a normal guy away from his day job that he would often go grocery shopping at Wegmans, where he was, of course, met by the never-shy Phillies fans who wanted to discuss baseball with him.

“In a recent sit-down with Jim Salisbury of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, Manuel told an interesting story of an interaction that he once had with a fan:

Salisbury: (Do) you still love Wegmans?

Manuel: I used to love to go to Wegmans. People used to talk to me all the time. I’ll tell you a story about (Ryan) Howard. This lady, she’s on the other side of the store, and Wegmans is a big store—I’m on one end and she’s over here at this end. And she hollers out loud to me, she goes, ‘Charlie, Ryan’s pulling off the ball!’ And I hollered back to her, I said, ‘Lady, he’s pulling off MVP!’”

July 4 numbers

In honor of Independence Day, we thought we would share a few facts courtesy of those fun folks at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Worried about the trade gap? Start oohing and ahhing about the imbalance when you watch this weekend’s fireworks displays.

The U.S. imported $307.8 million worth of fireworks in 2016, including $296.2 million from, you guessed it, China. U.S. exports of fireworks, by comparison, were a relative dud at $10 million in the same year.

Retailers in 2012 sold $368.6 million worth of fireworks in 2012—none to New Yorkers, of course.

The U.S. imported $5.4 million worth of American flags in 2016, including $5.3 million worth from China.

And remember those folks that we wanted to break away from in 1776? The ties remain pretty close, still.

A total of 23,959,441 people report English ancestry in the United States, ranking third behind those claiming roots in Germany, 45,526,331, and Ireland, 32,713,324.

And the value of trade between the United States and the United Kingdom in 2016 was $109.7 billion—making the British, our adversary in 1776, our seventh-leading trading partner today.

Send tips, rumors, inside information or strange tales for the Loop to Managing Editor Mike Dickinson at [email protected]

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