You CAN’T sell the naming rights for your local stadium. No matter how much money you’re offered, no “Coca-Cola Stadium” or “Home Depot Field.”
You CAN name it after the team (If you think “Yankee Stadium” is a swell name, go ahead and say so.)
You CAN name it after a person, any person, whether it be a player (past or proesent) from the team that plays at the stadium, a locally admired hero or politician, whatever. So, Minnesotans are perfectly free to keep the name “Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.”
You CAN keep a longstanding stadium name. Red Sox fans who are happy with “Fenway Park” needn’t change that name.
You have to give the stadium ONE name. If you’re a Dallas Cowboys fan, you have to say “Tom Landry Stadium” or “Roger Staubach Stadium.” No hyphenated “Landry-Staubach Stadium.” And no multilevel names like"Bart Starr Field at Vince Lombardi Stadium" for Green Bay fans.
A few thoughts:
The Yankees should play in Babe Ruth Stadium.
Since Citicorp doesn’t have any money anyway, the Met should drop the name “Citifield” and name the stadium after Gil Hodges (Willie Mays or Jackie Robinson would be perfectly fine alternatives).
The Baltimore Orioles ought to play in Brooks Robinson Stadium
The Celtics should play in Bill Russell Arena.
The Dolphins should play in Don Shula Stadium.
“Petco Park” is embarrassing. “Tony Gwynn Park” works for me.
The heck with Comerica. The Tigers should play at Al Kaline Stadium.
The building itself is awful, ugly, falling apart, outdated, and bad for both football and baseball viewing, but “Candlestick Park” is a beautiful name.
Since it’s named for the bit of land it’s sitting upon, it would be inappropriate to bring the name to Santa Clara when they move. So therefore, the new stadium should be called “Golden Field” in honor of the gold rush that gave the team its name, and be nicknamed “Sutter’s Mill.”
(A more likely thing to do would be to move the name of the field at Candlestick to the new stadium: Bill Walsh Field.)
Jackie Robinson Stadium would be the best choice. They’d be able to get as close as humanly possible to officially adopting the old Dodger fans and they’d get all kinds of cred for embracing the whole integration movement and would probably capture some new older black fans. I’m usually not a fan of uniform changes but if any team needs an update it’s the Mets, and this would be a hell of a excuse.
Wait, what would you change about the uniforms? The Dodgers are already using their uniforms. The charm of the orange and blue is that we took one color from the Giants and one from the Dodgers.
And, if those old Dodger fans haven’t already decided on a new team to support, then they have a serious case of indecisiveness.
If nothing else, it’s a shame so few New Yorkers remember who Bill Shea was, or why the stadium was named for him in the first place.
Just so as not to leave anyone hanging, lawyer Bill Shea was more instrumental than anyone in getting a National League expansion team for New York, after the Dodgers and Giants left.
I have no issue with Heinz Field, although Carnegie Field or Rooney Field would work as well. PNC Park? Clemente Stadium, no question about it. The new Penguins Stadium? Either Lemieux Arena or just The Igloo, the nickname of Mellon Arena.
