Ferentz Hangs With Heavy Hitters at Spring Training

Recruiting's over, spring football hasn't started ... if you're Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, why not escape to Palm Beach?

That's where Ferentz was Tuesday - Jupiter, Florida, to be precise, in Palm Beach County. Ferentz was there enjoying an exhibition game between the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals and meeting up with Tigers Manager Jim Leyland and Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa.

From this Palm Beach story on otherwise-mundane matters, namely something involving the Tigers:

Quite the guest list: Leyland went to dinner Monday night with Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a frequent guest of La Russa's during spring training. Before Tuesday's game, Leyland shook hands with Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, another La Russa guest. Bobby Knight, a La Russa confidante, was in the Cardinals' clubhouse after the game, using his cellphone to make dinner plans.

Let's pause right now and admit this item has little intrinsic news value. It's one of those old-school items you'd see in a "people" column. So-and-so Famous Person was seen schmoozing with So-and-So Other Famous Person, and then had dinner with Another Famous Person.

No one's throwing mud here, no one's seeing anything dark and sinister. It's just passing along a note in a spring-training story. Frankly, I could go for more fluff these days and less depressing news. Please, no more OctoMom, no more Chris Brown, no more A-Rod.

And wake me when the Dow gets back over 7,000, but not a minute before.

But I digress. Hawkeye fans, how do you feel about your coach palling around with baseball institutions like La Russa and Leyland, as well as two other Kings of Sports like Belichick and Knight.

Hey, why not have a poll about this?

[polldaddy poll=1444490]