"The only time I go there is when my kids and grandchildren invite me to go," he said. "They gave me a ticket to a game and a scorebook for Fathers Day, so I feel obligated to go when they call.

"But I actually dread the trip. I’d rather be with the kids at a Little League game. I always feel that I’m being held up the minute I get to Sec Taylor Stadium. It costs $4 to park the car, $6 for a ticket to the game and atrocious amounts of money for concessions. For instance, a beer costs 5 bucks."

The guy added that, once he got inside the stadium, a friend who lives downtown at the Plaza happened to sit near him. The friend, who was watching his first game of the year, is also no fan of the concession prices at the ballpark.

The two guys saw one another a couple of days later. The one from the suburbs asked the one who lives downtown what he thought of the experience.

"Bad game, awful night," the guy said. "It cost me almost $25. I paid $6 for my ticket, drank three beers, had to pay $3.50 for a hot dog, and the Cubs lost. They made that other team look like the 1927 Yankees."

"Feel fortunate you don’t have a family," the other guy said. "You’d be bankrupt if you had to take ‘em to a game."

"Hell, I feel good that I didn’t have to pay $4 to park," the guy said. "After three beers, I walked home."

That reminded me of a man who knows a lot about what’s wrong with the world.

He doesn’t go to the local ballpark much, either.

"Minor league team, major league prices," he’s told me a number of times.

The steep prices no doubt keep many fans—the Joe Six Pack types who’d like to take their grandchildren and neighbor kids—away from the place.

"Probably because a beer costs 5 bucks," I said.

"Yeah, but they called the crowd 7,237 and it seemed more like 1,500," he said.

"That’s because they count season ticketholders in the attendance numbers," I said. "Those are phony totals."

"You mean they count people who aren’t there?" he asked.

"You got it, hotshot," I answered.

At least Randy Peterson, who was at the park covering the game for the local paper, called it an "announced" crowd.

They can’t fool ol’ Randy, who’s been in the bowels of enough ballparks to know when something smells.

Hey, if it were me and if the I-Cubs’ management didn’t give me a total for no-shows in the park, I’d make my own estimate. I’d say 1,500 people were there and call it a lousy turnout for Triple-A baseball.

And maybe you didn’t know it, but the baseball coaching job is open again.

The last guy quit or was fired after having an 18-29 record that included a 10-21 finish in the Big Ten this past season. The team won only six home games all year.

Trying to play baseball in March, April and early May in Iowa weather is a ridiculous idea.

Nothing against Kimm, but if you ask me--instead of looking for a new coach--this seems like a perfect time to dump the Iowa program, just as Iowa State did a few years ago.

Think of the money that could be saved. And think of the land that would be opened up if the stadium were bulldozed.

Doesn’t the hospital need to expand again?

It’s a dumb idea.

However, nobody blinked an eye when two Iowa-Iowa State men’s basketball games—one in Iowa City and one in Ames—were played on Friday nights last season. One was in December, the other in March.

Floyd told ESPN Radio a while back that he had a job for Eustachy if he wanted it. Both are former Iowa State head coaches, but left under different circumstances.

Floyd quit to become the Chicago Bulls’ coach, Eustachy was pushed out after admitting he was an alcoholic and going to the wrong kind of after-the-game parties on the road.

Now Floyd has hired Jan van Breda Kolff and Kenny Gattison for his staff.

"Eustachy needs to confront his alcoholism and get sober before taking on any job," the Creston reader wrote me in an e-mail. "New Orleans would be the absolute worst place for him at this time. Can you imagine trying to remain sober at New Orleans?

"Not going to happen. Eustachy had a million-dollar job and blew it. Hard to feel sorry for him."

[MALY SAYS: OK, but isn’t the time approaching when we can put a little trust in Eustachy? Can’t we assume that he can lay off the booze long enough to help some team win a few games?]

"Did you catch Geneva Overholser on the News Hour on PBS the other night?

"She was discussing the fiasco at the New York Times, and ethics in journalism.

"I wish the moderator had asked her what she thinks of an editor and managing editor—both married—who have an affair, run off and then try to cover it up.

"Ethics? Egad!

"The years since she left the Register have not been kind to Geneva—she has aged significantly. She’s teaching journalism at Missouri now. Maybe she was at the party where Larry Eustachy got nailed."

[MALY SAYS: Overholser, a former editor at the local paper, has been getting lots of TV air time lately while discussing the trials and tribulations of newspapers.

"I am the cops and courts reporter, and I have no idea what I’m doing," she writes in an e-mail. "But it’s nice to be employed again. I hope I can return to sports eventually, but who knows?"

[MALY SAYS: Don’t let Harman fool you. She knows all about the "cops and courts" beat. She owns a law degree. With a law and sports background, she’ll fit in well at Iowa City—especially with the characters who run the streets there during the summer].