I ask you, would the fans in Mudville have named their stadium Fritos Field? Would there have been a Gipper if the Irish were asked to play in Sara Lee Stadium? Could the Babe have possibly smoked No. 60 into the bleachers of some ballpark named after an onion dip enhancer?
Disappearing are the hallowed names of our sports stadiums - Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, the Polo Grounds, Sportsman's Park - names that stirred memories and images of champions. Yes, Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium have survived, but they may yet become Fig Newton Field and SnackWell's Stadium. As we speak, Churchill Downs could be dickering with SpaghettiOs.
Tell me, would you really like going to Monster Park for a 49ers game? That can't be the new name for their football stadium. It's got to be a theme park. Only in a Monty Python movie would the populace traipse to Monster Park, right? Wrong. Six million dollars won the naming contract for Monster Cable Products Inc.
Not that a previous moniker, 3Com Park, stirred excitement or implied what went on inside, anymore than does Minute Maid Park evoke the crack of the bat. Rather, it gives new meaning to the term juiced. Who plays there? Here's a hint: the Houston Astros. But cheer up, guys, two years ago you were calling it Enron Field.
Consider what else is at stake here: the macho tenor of American sports. Who is going to get drunk and throw beer cups in a place called Tupperware Field? Or let me put it this way: could you, in good conscience, stuff an effigy of Carl Yastrzemski and stand it at the entrance to Winnebago Field?
What does auctioning the naming rights of our arenas and stadiums say about us? Disregard for tradition? Profit trumping love of the game? Selling out the fans?
But does it matter? Only if you have the old-fashioned view that the name of a city's premier sports facility ought to hint at which particular team plays what particular sport there - in other words, have a name recognizably connected to the sport and traceable to what happens inside.
A case in point: what goes on at Lincoln Financial Field? The Philadelphia Eagles play there - instead of in a place called Eagles Stadium. Too bad.
What about the sanctity of a name - the quaint notion that once a place has a name, it sticks? And that the name of a city's sports sanctum sanctorum ought to honor bygone days and in a sense serve as a city's symbol? Doesn't a city's sports center help to distinguish it, to stoke civic pride, to bring recognition? Can a self-respecting metropolis become home to Jiffy Lube Stadium?
In a real sense, don't we, the public, have a mutual interest and shared ownership in these teams and facilities? In short, the names of the arenas matter, which argues against offering naming contracts to the highest bidder.
And isn't naming a football stadium after an investment firm confusing?
Take the newly named Edward Jones Dome, home of the St. Louis Rams. In 2000, Rams fans were going to the Trans World Dome. But never to St. Louis Rams Stadium. Perish the thought. But let's acknowledge that corporate sponsors take risks. With the Lakers playing the way they did last season in Staples Center, the office-supply company's image could go into the toilet along with Kobe Bryant's.
And when the pros sell out, can the colleges be far behind? Last December, Boston College played North Carolina in the vaunted Continental Tire Bowl. This took place in Charlotte's renowned Bank of America Stadium - with halftime entertainment courtesy of the matchless Merrill Lynch Marching Band. (O.K., I made up the part about the band.)
But we also recognize the need to balance a city's budget. We should admire our cash-strapped stadium owners and cities for coming up with naming deals as an innovative revenue stream. The owners' option would be to slice a couple of million off some free agent's signing bonus.
But let's not go there. Let's accept that the owners really do need this additional income and that a city like San Francisco really can balance its $5 billion annual budget with another $2 million from a naming contract.
Then, if need be, line up the drug companies, the investment firms, whatever, and we'll fatten the municipal kitty by putting the names of some more civic hallmarks up for bids. The famed symbol for the gateway to the West in St. Louis can become Dr. Scholl's Arch. San Francisco can switch Alcatraz to AutoZone and have you drive the Birkenstock Bay Bridge to Oakland. But only for two years. Then comes a fresh round of bidding and yummy new names. Ka-ching, ka-ching.
There is some hope, however, for the home of the 49ers in San Francisco. A measure, passed in November, stipulated that the name will revert back to Candlestick Park permanently after the contract with Monster Cable expires in 2008.
Meanwhile, if Mayor Gavin Newsom finds that the few million dollars the city receives from Monster Cable does not bridge San Francisco's budget breach, he can offer to rename the city. There is a certain cachet to San Starbucks.