EXTRA: Guaranteed Rate not quite so absurd, now that we have Ring Central

Now can we stop bashing about the Chicago White Sox for supposedly playing their ballgames in the most ridiculously-named of all stadiums that have taken on a corporate identity? 

Will the new Ring Central Coliseum … 

What brings this topic to mind was the report Wednesday from the Oakland Athletics, who are now playing their games in a facility called Ring Central Coliseum.

WHICH IS REALLY the building that for the past half-century was known as (and most likely still thought of as) the Oakland Coliseum. Or if you want to be overly formal, add in the “Alameda County” portion of its old name.

But the stadium that has been home to such Hall of Fame greats as Reggie Jackson, Jim Hunter and Rollie Fingers, then later Rickey Henderson and Dennis Eckersley, now has a new identity – as the cloud-based communications company is paying $1 million to the team for the naming rights.

Of course, the fact that the building is so old (opening in 1968) and has such a strong identity that no one is going to really use the “Ring Central” name is the reason why its naming rights value is so low.

Now it is the hope of Athletics fans that they will be moving to a new stadium in the not-too-far-distant future. This could just be a short stint.

BUT YOU HAVE to admit, “Ring Central” is even more ridiculous than “Guaranteed Rate Field.” Although when you think of it, all the corporate ID-ed stadia have a sense of absurdity to them.

… detract ridicule from "Guaranteed Rate?" Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Personally, I always thought the Houston Astros ought to be stuck with the “Enron Field” moniker for their ballpark even after it became public knowledge that the company had its share of corruption within its ranks. 

So can we stop the mockery of Guaranteed Rate, what with the corporate logo of an arrow pointing downward supposedly showing the status of the White Sox themselves?

Probably not, since I suspect fans of the Chicago Cubbies wouldn’t be able to handle life if they couldn’t claim their favorite ballclub somehow had a sense of superiority – even though with its history of mediocrity to downright cruddiness, they really have no right boasting about anything no matter what happened three years ago.

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When do corporate identities for professional sports stadiums go too far?

SeatGeek Stadium.

You just know that name is going to bring about derision amongst Chicago sporting fans for the Chicago Fire professional soccer club.

SeatGeek the stadium off in the distance from the Loop

BUT IT SEEMS the Fire (not the actual blaze from 1871, but the team playing in a stadium built for their use out in suburban Bridgeview) will allow their home pitch to be given that public identity with the coming of the 2019 season.

This is the final year that their stadium will carry the name Toyota Park.

Which as far as I’m concerned isn’t really a loss, since I don’t care for building names that are meant to be nothing more than advertising for somebody else’s product. I’d love it if the building in which the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks had never been given a name promoting the interests of United Airlines.

But at least that was a Chicago-area entity. Unlike Toyota, which sells their products throughout the Chicago area, here but doesn’t really make them here.

Soldier, or Soldiers? Front room, or fronchroom?

COME 2019, IT will be SeatGeek Stadium. And yes, I’m sure there will be some people anal retentive enough to argue about whether there ought to be a space between “Seat” and “Geek,” or whether the company’s desires ought to be respected and the name spelled out as one word.

For the record, I had to look it up, since I had no idea what SeatGeek was. It seems it’s a website (seatgeek.com) where one can go to find tickets to various types of events. Including sports.

And including professional soccer.

A corporate identity of nearly three decades

It seems the company is an official Major League Soccer corporate partner, and the Minnesota United, Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders, Sporting Kansas City and LAFC (a Los Angeles-area team that competes with the more traditionally-named Los Angeles Galaxy) have partnerships.

I SUPPOSE WE should also include the Chicago Fire on that list, since the company has now bought the right to have their identity on the Fire’s building.

For what it’s worth, Bloomberg Markets reported that the deal could result in payments of up to $4 million annually to the Chicago Fire. Not a bad sum, although I wonder how seriously people will take a name like “SeatGeek.”

It makes me wonder if Chicago Fire fans will go out of their way to refuse to use the name and come up with their own identity for the stadium out in the southwestern suburb (not far from Midway Airport, if you must know).

Although I wonder if SeatGeek could surpass Guaranteed Rate Field in terms of an unpopular identity for sporting fans to use. Yes, there are many Chicago White Sox fans who haven’t come to terms with the latest corporate name the White Sox bought for themselves two years ago.

Is baseball's sporting superiority in large part because "Sox Park" ...

THERE ARE MANY Chicago Cubs fans who go out of their way to deride the stadium name, and for all I know they will refuse to let SeatGeek Stadium somehow become a tackier name than Guaranteed Rate. Just because, in their mini-mindsets, the White Sox have to rank at the bottom.

Although when it comes to Chicago stadium identities, I always thought the most off-beat debate concerned the home of the Chicago Bears and the great number of allegedly hard-core fans who persist in calling the building “Soldiers Field” rather than the proper “Soldier.”

... and "Cubs Park" make sense?

By comparison, I’m sure there will be some sports fans who will show derision for professional soccer (mostly because they don’t comprehend “real” football, which ain't da game da Bears play so badly these days) by refusing to acknowledge the Bridgeview stadium altogether.

It’s a shame that all sports teams can’t be like our baseball clubs – where there are some people who steadfastly call the stadiums “Sox Park” and “Cubs Park” regardless of whatever name appears on the marquee. That would make sporting sense, even if it wouldn’t generate the million-dollar payoffs for the teams themselves.

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EXTRA: Snow falls on Chicago – Sox play anyway, while Cubs snooze

So much for the dual day games by both the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox played Monday.

The ONLY first pitch Monday afternoon, as I viewed it on television. No, I wasn't up to braving the 35-degree temperatures or the snowfall. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

It seems the Monday morning snow caused the Cubs to reschedule Monday’s game for Tuesday. Monday was supposed to be the Cubs’ home opener for 2018. But the Cubs tried to make things a little cutesy , with photographs of ballplayers throwing snowballs and taking "selfies" of themselves on the slushy Wrigley Field turf

AS FOR THE White Sox, they were the team that rescheduled their night game Monday to a day game, figuring it would be a little less cold for the fans.

But as groundskeeper Roger Bossard said prior to the ballgame, he figured out a way to use lawnmowers as makeshift snowblowers. Between that and turning on the hoses to spray the Guaranteed Rate Field turf with 50-degree water, the White Sox were able to melt and clear away the snow.

Making it likely that the White Sox get in their ballgame with just a little delay (about 1:30 p.m., rather than the reskedded 1:10 p.m.). Which the White Sox thought was a better option than playing two games Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays.

All I know is that in my home neighborhood, I took the dogs for a walk in the morning and they enjoyed the light snowfall that, oddly enough, didn’t accumulate at all on sidewalks or the streets, but only fell on the grass.

BUT THEN QUICKLY melted away everywhere.

Considering that we’re supposed to get temperatures up to about 60 degrees by Wednesday, we can only hope this is the end of winter snowfall – only about three weeks after winter officially ended.

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Baseball back in Chicago, and Sout’ Side plays off a Springpatch delicacy

I know there are the hard-core fanatics who think that going to a ballgame and getting something to eat means ordering nothing more than a bag of peanuts and/or a hot dog. If they really want to splurge, maybe they’ll go for a polish sausage.

A capital take on the 'horseshoe'

Which is why I found it amusing when Major League Baseball conducted a food festival earlier this month in New York, where each of the 30 ball clubs felt compelled to feature what they consider to be a unique item their concessionaires sell at the ballpark.

FOR THE CUBS, the featured food was a hot dog. As in served “Chicago-style” with tomatoes, that glow-in-the-dark pickle relish and sport peppers (and absolutely NO ketchup!!!). Which might offend some sensibilities that the Cubs would try to claim such a common food item as their very own.

But the White Sox may be the ball club that came up with something unique.

As in their featured foot item was the “South Side horseshoe,” a sandwich that is considered a variation of that dining “delight” unique to the Illinois capital city of Springfield.

Personally, I have to admit that during the seven years I worked and lived in Springfield, I only once ate a horseshoe. I didn’t think it much of a big deal. In fact, I think it a sign of the lack of a capital cuisine that THIS is considered the unique dining experience (that and chili, which the locals insist on spelling “chilli” sold at “chilli parlors” that Chicagoans most likely would think of as dives).

White Sox offering up a fancier take on the horseshoe

SO TO SEE that the White Sox are adding to their food menu (albeit only at the concessions stands that service the private boxes – the riff-raff sitting in the allegedly cheap seats won’t have easy access) a horseshoe variation makes me want to chuckle.

Particularly since my comprehension of the White Sox version of the sandwich is that it will have Italian sausage and giardiniera, in addition to the French fries and beer sauce that a Springfield-type horseshoe would have.

I suspect that many a Springpatch-type will look at the White Sox’ take on the horseshoe and dismiss it as high falutin’, and way too overly fancy. Others might think it is tampering with the capital’s attempt at culture and cuisine.

Cubs offer a high-priced hot dog

So will be White Sox be selling a “real” horseshoe at the ballpark this season – beginning a week from Thursday when they have their home opener against the Detroit Tigers?

LIKE I SAID previously, I had a horseshoe once when I lived in Springfield, and what I had was turkey on toasted bread with the fries piled on top and the cheesy beer sauce poured on thick. Hamburger or ham are popular alternatives to turkey.

I know of people who think horseshoes are something special who contend that it’s the beer sauce that makes all the difference between a delicacy and an unhealthy pile of slop.

In the case of the White Sox, they’re supposedly using Modelo-brand beer to create their sauce for the sandwich. Whether that makes a difference, I don’t know. But because Modelo is the “official import beer of the Chicago White Sox,” the ballclub feels compelled to promote it.

Old-school red hots at the ballpark

All I know is it will be amusing if the Springfield horseshoe actually catches on at White Sox games. Or if it winds up being dismissed as yet more evidence of the unsophistication of the Illinois capital city.

FOR I’M SURE it will wind up being more adventurous than the Cubs offering up hot dogs. Even if they use the real Vienna beef brand of wieners, I don’t doubt that the Cubs’ take on a hot dog with everything (“dragged through the garden,” so to speak) will wind up coming off as second-rate to the hot dog one can buy at any corner stand.

Particularly when one compares the dollar or so for a hot dog in the real world, compared to the $6 one will have to pay at Wrigley Field.

One-time star now a sandwich

But ballpark food caters to a captive audience, and we wind up paying the high prices for everything (in my case, $9 for a Minnie Miñoso-branded “Cuban Comet” sandwich) in order to experience the thrill of a competitive ballclub trying to do proud by our city.

Anyway, baseball is back for this season (the White Sox start out in Kansas City, while the Cubs ‘do’ Miami), and I’m bound to try to get out to a few games this season. Sitting down by the foul pole in those cheap – by modern standards – seats, where maybe we can compare the merits of a Sox-style horseshoe.

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Netting at the ol' ball game? Why not!

Do you want to provoke a serious argument with a fan of professional baseball?

This netting the last time I went to a ballgame in Gary, Ind., didn't stop me from seeing on-field action. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

If so, bring up whether Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Or whether baseball ought to get realistic and adopt the designated hitter in both of the major leagues.

IF YOU HAVEN’T aggravated enough people with those lines of inquiry, then bring up the idea of whether baseball stadiums ought to extend the screens that now exist behind home plate to stretch all the way around the playing field.

Should fans have to have some sort of netting between them and the playing field to offer some sort of protection from balls hit into the stands? Is the act of watching a baseball game so potentially hazardous that teams ought to offer their fans some form of protection?

The issue, which has cropped up in baseball fan debate sporadically in recent years, was raised to a higher level last week when a fan at Yankee Stadium in New York got hit by a ball hit into the stands. The statistical desire to show how far and how hard all home runs were hit was used to show that this particular foul ball was traveling at 105 miles an hour at the time the fan was hit.

Does anybody pay attention to signs like this?

It’s no wonder she had to be taken to an area hospital for some medical treatment.

THIS ISN’T EVEN a lone incident. For it seems that on Friday, a fan attending a Chicago White Sox game at Guaranteed Rate Field got hit in the mouth by a foul ball hit by Brandon Moss of the Kansas City Royals.

Do ball clubs think this sign is adequate protection?

White Sox officials were quick to point out that the fan did not have to be taken to an area hospital. Although the Associated Press reported that the fan was seen publicly for some time holding a napkin to her face at the spot where she got hit by the ball.

Now a Royal, his foul hit fan in mouth

This particular fan was seated about 30 feet behind the first base dugout being used by the Kansas City Royals. Which is a prime seat, but also provides just enough distance that some people could be naively conned into thinking they are far enough from the playing field to avoid being hit.

Now as things are now at Guaranteed Rate Field, there is a netting that stretches a few dozen feet high right behind home plate. But once you move down the foul lines, you’re exposed. A lot of foul balls can come whizzing your way, if you’re not paying attention.

WHICH MAY BE the real problem. Too many people go to ballgames, but really don’t pay attention to what’s happening on the field. Meaning a line drive could turn foul and whiz right by their head – and they wouldn’t notice until it’s too late.

The first designated hitter

Now I know some baseball fans who insist the reason they don’t sit in seats right behind home plate (aside from the fact they’re cheap and don’t want to pay the prime prices for such tickets) is because they don’t like the obstruction of their view of the game that the netting supposedly causes.

I don’t buy it. That netting usually tends to fade out of one’s view quickly enough, and perhaps those fans down the foul lines need to be protected from their own vacuousness. Because the courts have previously ruled that line of small type ball clubs used to print on the back of tickets implying that people who attend games assume all risks of being injured doesn’t mean a thing.

Oh, Hell no!!!

I also know there are those who go to ballgames (usually on tickets provided by someone else, so they didn’t really pay the absurdly high prices of major league ball these days) who don’t pay attention. I’ve encountered too many of these knuckleheads who try to mock those people who DO pay attention to the playing field.

AS FOR THE idea of netting being unsightly, I recall when I attended ballgames at the old Vonachen Stadium in Peoria, Ill. Netting extended from one end of the grandstand to the other. All seats had

Maybe someday in Cooperstown?

something offering protection – although admittedly, the minor league grandstand only stretched from first base to third base and did not go all the way down to the foul lines.

This is something that ball clubs are going to have to take on just to avoid the perception that going to a ballgame is a hazard to one’s health. The reality is that modern-day stadiums with all their gadgets and attractions offer too many distractions. Perhaps netting from foul pole to foul pole is the price we pay.

Which I’m sure is a concept so radical for some people – perhaps even more upsetting to their concept of how things should be than my suggestions that it’s time the National League get off its high horse and realize the designated hitter has arrived and is part of the modern-day game.

And as for Pete Rose in the Baseball Hall of Fame? I’d sooner see Sammy Sosa there!!!

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EXTRA: “The Cell,” (2003-16)

The Chicago White Sox have spent the past 14 seasons playing their home games in a building known for short as “the Cell.” But with the name change announced Wednesday to Guaranteed Rate Field, does this now mean the Sox play at “the Rate?”

From "New Comiskey" to "the Cell" to "the Rate?" Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 Ugh!!!

THEN AGAIN, GUARANTEED Rate Field, named for the Chicago-based national mortgage lender that bought the naming rights to the stadium through the 2029 season, isn’t any more stupid than any other corporate-motivated name for a sports arena.

I question what companies really get out of paying millions of dollars to sports teams to have their brand put on the building.

Particularly in a case like with the White Sox, where the fan base is stubborn enough to resist using the new name. This could well be the inspiration for fans to deliberately go back to using the old “Sox Park” name that was on the ballpark they played in during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Although with a building of the physical scale of the current stadium, I’d argue for calling it “White Sox Stadium,” just like Yankee or Dodger, or perhaps Kansas City’s old Royals Stadium – which was the inspiration for the White Sox’ ballpark when it was built in the early 1990s.

SO FOR WHAT it’s worth, the reign of the building that began its life as “New Comiskey Park” may wind up being able to say its glory days came when it was named for a company that once used actress Joan Cusack as its face (that is, when they weren’t using a pink space alien).

For it was during its time as U.S. Cellular Field that the World Series was played in Chicago – a first in 46 years and the only one in recent years played by a Chicago team.

No matter what the Cubs accomplish this year, history will record it was the White Sox that won an ultimate championship first any time in this century.

It also was the payout from the U.S. Cellular interests that covered the cost of a renovation that enhanced much of the character the building currently has.

BU IT’S NOT like the “U.S. Cellular” name could have continued for much longer. If anything, it’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

Considering that U.S. Cellular doesn’t even exist anymore in Chicago or Illinois. The building essentially became advertising for a company that local people couldn’t use – even if they wanted to.

And considering that the company withered away locally, it didn’t likely do much business when it was here. So the days of “the Cell” are no more. Let’s just hope that someone can come up with a new moniker so that we don’t wind up calling the building “the Rate.”

 

One last task before retiring -- name park

Perhaps Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson can use his skills at brandishing nicknames (he being the guy who came up with, among others, “The Big Hurt” for Hall of Famer Frank Thomas) to come up with an appropo label for the ballpark at Shields Avenue.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: People were just as upset 14 years ago when the “U.S. Cellular” moniker was applied to the White Sox ballpark.