maly, too: Good Eats In Balltown

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Good Eats In Balltown

By RON MALY

Sometimes I attend church on Saturday evenings, sometimes on Sunday mornings.

I happened to be there on Sunday this past weekend, and ran into a longtime friend.

I call him Herschel because--as he points out--that's what his parents named him.

On Sundays, Herschel and I try to get together over coffee provided by the church before Bible class starts so we can discuss the most important happenings of the weekend--stuff like his White Sox and my Cubs in the summer and the Hawkeyes and Cyclones in the fall and winter.

Obviously, we had a lot to talk about a few mornings ago, what with the Cubs winning their first World Series in 108 years and the Hawkeyes and Cyclones experiencing mounting frustrations on the football field.

Herschel also mentioned that he had sent me an email a while back about Balltown, the Iowa community I wrote about many years ago for the paper and a couple of months ago for this website.

Somehow I missed Hershcel's email.

I was probably busy talking to another very good friend of mine about the Amphicar, a vehicle manufactured in the 1960s that was both a car and a boat, and listening to folks named Frank and Edna bitching about how their favorite loaf of bread skyrocketed from $2.99 to $5.98 overnight at HyVee.

I enjoyed writing columns about both the Amphicar and the bread, so now I'll get to the email Herschel sent me about Balltown. Here it is:

"Hi, Ron,

"I still occasionally check your blog and I just read the thing you wrote about Balltown. I have been there several times along with family, most recently last year.

"We enjoy eating at Breitbach's [pictured]. They usually have a great buffet. It is a very popular restaurant and people come from 60 or 70 miles or more to eat there. It is especially busy in the fall when people come to see the colorful leaves.

"Right at the west edge of town is a scenic overlook along the highway offering great views of the valley and lowlands below, which are dotted with farm places. You can also see the Mississippi River several miles in the distance. The view is quite spectacular this time of the year, so the restaurant is also very busy, especially on weekends.  Tour buses often stop there too for a meal.

"As you wrote, Breitbach's was considered the oldest restaurant in Iowa. Unfortunately, you may remember, they had a disastrous fire about 8 or 9 years ago. They rebuilt, but then it burned again shortly after. They rebuilt it again and that is now the current building.

"There always was a full-sized ballfield right behind the restaurant, but I'm not sure if it is still there. Back in the '50s and '60s, Lowden had a very competitive independent baseball team made up of farmers, businessmen, and whoever else lived in the area that had baseball talent. In those days they would draw 2,500 people to the games at the field in Lowden.

"They would also travel to other towns, mostly in northeast Iowa, and they played games in Balltown. I think they had their own team. The Lowden team even went to some towns in southeastern Wisconsin, Potosi was one of them, I believe.

Herschel

"Good to visit with you last Sunday."

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.