THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: It is a great job — even if you have to haggle over the parking

Over the years, a lot of readers have mentioned that I have a great job. 

I agree. 

When speaking to groups or curious individuals, I often answer this way: “I get paid to do what thousands of people would pay to do. 

“Plus, there’s free parking.”

Yes, that last line is a wrap-up joke, but there actually have been squabbles over finding some spot for a rental car. 

Harry Caray used to say that he had to bribe some traffic guards with a six-pack of beer just for a decent parking place. 

I was riding out to the stadium in Baltimore with a colleague from the Kansas City Star when we encountered a parking Nazi who insisted we didn’t have the proper credential for a full VIP lot. 

(It was practically empty.) 

In reply, Dick fired up our massive Lincoln tank and told the guard that he’d drive right through the chain — and make meat loaf of this once-surly gentleman — if he didn’t get out of the way. 

Or open the lot. 

The guy read Dick’s threat in a heartbeat and jumped clear. 

Just another night at the ballpark. 

BY THE way, despite Harry Caray’s one-liner about parking at Wrigley Field, almost everyone below him on the food chain would need to arrive around noon to get a space for a night game. 

And you’d need more than a six-pack to try a serious bribe. 

Your Rolex, maybe. 

(Except, they’d know you’re a journalist and the watch HAD to be fake.) 

I think it’s a Chicago thing. 

During one of Michael Jordan’s outrageous scoring spells, I was a columnist for the Denver Post and flew into Chicago to do a full-length feature. 

The title: “Could anyone, now or in the past, be able to handle Mike, one-on-one?” 

(Spoiler: After talking to NBA players, scouts, coaches and yes, Michael himself … the closest anyone could come was Utah coach Jerry Sloan. 

Jerry was a defensive beast for the Bulls in his playing days, and mean about it, to boot. 

He was 6-foot-6, and about 90 percent of that was elbows. 

(Credit for that description to Michael Jeffrey Jordan.) 

In any event, once again a photographer and I were halted and hassled trying to enter Chicago Stadium. 

We were rescued by Tim Hallam, the Bulls’ PR director. 

This is slightly off the subject, but Tim was famous around the league for his phone greeting when he wasn’t around — or didn’t want to talk to some specific person. 

When you rang Tim, the phone buzzed just once, there was a click and then his voice boomed angrily: “WHAT??? 

That was the whole message, and just enough, when you think about it. 

“Nobody wants a long story that ends with an image of me sweating in the gym,” Hallam said. 

Fine summation. 

Case closed. 

NOW, IF you were to go searching for Tim on Google or — I don’t know — some outer-space search engine, you would discover a different Tim Hallam. 

This fellow was involved in a project dreamed up by a gang of Canadians. 

They wanted to make a movie called “Hang on to Your Hangers-on,” and did it. 

Now we zoom in another direction. 

That movie title made me think of the baseball winter meetings, back in the days when everyone important from every team showed up. 

The gathering one year was in New Orleans, and it happened in an era when baseball writers were still all crazy (most, anyhow). 

Someone around got to mentioning titles — in this case, book titles. 

After plenty of discussion (and babbling), we decided on some humorous classics written by Atlanta sports columnist Lewis Grizzard, author of “Shoot Low, Boys, They’re Ridin’ Shetland Ponies.” 

Grizzard died at 47 after four heart-valve transplants, but he managed to write 25 books, including “If Love Were Oil, I’d Be a Quart Low.” 

Lewis made no apologies for his Dixie roots (“I’m American by birth and Southern by the grace of God”), and he accomplished so much in our business that the rest of us felt like we were loafing. 

Maybe I should get back to work. 

A reader asked for my favorite sport, and sometime soon I’ll dig out some more stories. 

Drinking coffee and bourbon in a major league dugout ought to make the list. 

Right? 

Email: scameron@cdapress.com 

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens. 

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”