Fort Myers has offered consumers a reason for hope as they negotiate rising gas prices and abandoned SUVs on their way to the ballpark.

Every Monday night, the high Class A Miracle will offer box seats, for the lowest price in town for regular unleaded gas. Box seats for tonight’s game–which usually retail at $7–will go for $3.86 (a deal the Miracle found at "Sharpie’s Super Stop.

"Every day there is disturbing news about how high gas has risen in price. We are going to turn a negative into a positive," Miracle general manager Steve Gliner said.

Kevin Costner Road Show

Let me first start with this piece of breaking news: Kevin Costner has a band.

Even better, Modern West (which is described on the band’s MySpace page as "live, loud and long") is coming to some ballparks near you (or at least me).

Costner was in Eugene, Ore., over the weekend to help drum up support for the burgeoning University of Oregon baseball team. The longtime friend of Oregon baseball coach George Horton took some BP at Civic Stadium and was in town to promote a fundraising concert June 17 on the Oregon campus.

Modern West is also coming to Durham, N.C.–best know as the home of Baseball America–to perform a Fourth of July concert at Durham Baseball Athletic Park to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Bull Durham.

"This is really exciting for the Triangle," Durham Bulls General Manager Mike Birling said, "Our season long celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Bull Durham couldn’t have a better highlight than bringing Kevin Costner back to Durham."

(Not to be outdone, fellow nostalgic-baseball-film-star Ray Liotta, of Field of Dreams, threw out the first pitch on Saturday at Triple-A Albuquerque. No word yet on a Gary Lee Cavagnaro or Chris Barnes reunion, but I’ll keep you posted.)