Yes, I know corporate stadium names are old news. Corporate America sucked the life and tradition out of America’s Pastime (among other less-official pastimes) long ago, and I frankly never really cared. The Enron Field fiasco was pretty funny, after all.
But that was before Jerry Reinsdorf got wise to all this.
The devious, scheming, ultimately soulless Chicago White Sox owner last month insouciantly discarded the name Comiskey Park, which graced two stadiums and endured 91 seasons of major-league ball. The stadium at 35th and Shields on the South Side will now be called U.S. Cellular Stadium for $68 million over the next 20 years.
What was once mildly upsetting and slightly amusing phenomenon now, at long last, makes me very angry. It doesn’t bother me that much if companies buy the names of sports stadiums, but only under limited circumstances. For example, beer companies are allowed to name stadiums-Miller Park, Coors Field and Busch Stadium are all great, even tasteful names. (Microbreweries are not included-Pete’s Wicked Ballpark just doesn’t work.)
But it isn’t just that Comiskey’s been tossed on the scrap heap of great stadium names alongside casualties both old (Tiger Stadium, Ebbets Field) and new (Astrodome, Riverfront Stadium). What is worse is that it wasn’t the victim of the wrecking ball, but rather the prey of the misguided marketing strategies of an ambitious “new economy” company eager to get its transitory moniker in the minds of sports fans—er, consumers.
Now White Sox fans like myself take our place among patrons of Comerica Park, Safeco Field, Bank One Ballpark, Qualcomm Stadium and PNC Park. I consider myself lucky that I at least have a clue what U.S. Cellular does.
But it isn’t quite so black and white as “corporate naming rights are bad.” There are more layers to this particular fiasco. For once thing, Comiskey Park is a lousy, sterile place to see a baseball game, and U.S. Cellular Field is a lousy sterile name that matches it perfectly.
But the most delicious irony is that if Charles A. Comiskey, namesake of the park, still owned the Chicago White Sox, he would have done the exact same thing Reinsdorf did. Remember the 1919 Black Sox? The nine players banned from baseball for throwing the World Series weren’t fat cats looking to get fatter. Nope—Comiskey was the greedy fat cat. Rather than pay pitcher Eddie Cicotte a promised $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games that season, he benched him for three weeks after his 29th win. But he was a fixture, as stingy as he was, and he rightly deserved his name on the ballpark he built.
Reinsdorf takes Comiskey’s example and takes it to new, modern extremes. He has repeatedly disbanded competitive teams mid-season for “long term payoffs” that happen to save management a lot of money, while meanwhile providing fans a pedestrian, unwelcoming venue to watch his underperforming teams while taking big corporate payoffs to trash his team’s traditions.
The Reinsdorf-Comiskey axis of evil has terrorized the South Side long enough. I wish to introduce a draft resolution demanding Reinsdorf cease his reign of terror upon South Side sports fans. He has harbored terrorists (such as the overpaid, unsalvageable whiner Frank Thomas and all-around misanthrope Albert Belle). His weapons of mass mediocrity threaten us all. His record speaks for itself—during his 22-year tenure, the Sox have seen only three short-lived postseason appearances.
The time for debate has ended; regime change is the only answer.
