Corporate Takeovers, Stadium Makeovers

I've always been annoyed by stadiums that sell their "naming rights" to corporations. When the Giants built Pacific Bell Park, they at least sold out to a local company with a lot of history.

Unfortunately, said company has been sold/merged twice since (with another pending), causing two renamings of the ballpark. SBC Park was a particularly bad name, but then, "SBC" is/was a dumb name for a company. At least AT&T (or should I say, "at&t") has some history. Here's a thought: when you sell the naming rights, get a commitment that they won't change their corporate name and logo!

I just stumbled across a grassroots local effort to rename the place "Mays Field." Makes sense to me; I always thought making the address of the stadium 24 Willie Mays Plaza was a very classy move.

BTW, I think the worst corporate renaming ever is a tie between San Diego renaming Jack Murphy Stadium (named after a popular local sportswriter) to Qualcomm Stadium and Miami renaming Joe Robbie Stadium (named after the guy who paid to build it!) to Pro Player Stadium.

And yes, I will write about something other than baseball one of these days....