Hard to compete with the bracketeers, the spring training reporters, the draftniks, the Puffy combers. So I'm here to talk about another sport, one that we all love dearly, but all too rarely.

I speak, of course, of bowling.

As you may or may not recall, Rip Van Winkle fell asleep during a bowling party and woke up 20 years later to find that the world had totally changed. Well, the other day, when I took my son bowling for the first time in a while, I start feeling like the old Dutchman. The world had changed on me.

The balls, for one thing, were fluorescent. (My 16-pounder was a robin's-egg blue -- how manly.) None of the balls were black, because the lanes themselves were cloaked in darkness. In fact, with lights strung along the gutters, it looked like a Vegas lounge. Scoring has been computerized for years, so there's no use waxing poetic about the thrill of pencil to paper. But now on the screen, in between the arithmetic, bowling pins dance around in bad-acid animation. The truly consciousness-expanding change, though, was at the front desk. When I ordered up two pairs of shoes and two games for John and me, the clerk said, rather too cheerily, "That'll be $32, please."

Thirty-two smackers for two lines and four shoes? I did the math: Shoe rentals were $4 apiece, games were $6 apiece. I won't tell you what I used to pay for same as a kid, but even as recently as the '80s, I remember shoes were 50 cents and games were $2. Now I was shelling out trey-deuce for an hour of fun. And I used to think skiing was expensive. Gary Sheffield and Frank Thomas, I feel your pain. You probably like to bowl.

Let me get this straight. The national landscape is dotted with abandoned bowling alleys, the best contemporary bowlers still trail Ray Bluth in name recognition, and, in the words of PBA president Steve Miller, "We're just above roadkill." So the answer is to raise bowling prices so high that a family of four can spend $88 without working up a sweat, not to mention buying refreshments?

Seems that the sport is looking at the 7-10 split here. Do we milk our patrons to turn a profit today (7)? Or do we keep our prices reasonable so we can build up a steady clientele that will pay off in the future (10)?

The split is a damn shame because bowling really is a great sport. Is there anything cooler than letting one go, then turning around and walking back to your seat because you know that ... wham! ... it was a strike the moment it left your hand. Is there another pastime that's guaranteed fun for your date, your family, yourself? Instant camaraderie with the folks on the lane next to yours. A chance to work on your approach, your line, your pace, your latest dance move. An opportunity to have a talk with a 16-pound Ebonite and his 10 wooden friends.

Despite those visceral pleasures, the only thing that's popular about bowling right now is Ed. I had my own Stuckeybowl growing up -- two, actually: Johnny Walthers' Troy Bowl and the Trojan Bowlatorium. Ten games was nothing but an afternoon back then. Now it's dinner for two at Le Cirque.

I don't presume to tell the bowling industry how to run its business. I'm sure the cost of maintaining all that equipment on all that real estate justifies the glitz and turkey-ization of prices (XXX). But it seems to me that the sport has to be a little more accessible. Either that, or go totally the other way and start exclusive bowling country clubs and resorts. Think Winged Foot with a 10 on the back of it.

As for me, once I got over the disorientation of the setting and the pricing, I found my groove in the second game, missing 200 when I couldn't convert a 5-10 in the ninth.

That was fun, my son said.

He was right. Also funds.

Steve Wulf is executive editor of ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at steve.wulf@espnmag.com.