07 January 2009

The Lovely Morgan

Let's start something. Effective today, I'm calling the Dbacks' home park on Jefferson something other than what the latest multimillion dollar naming rights contract expects me to call it.


We're paying customers - and taxpayers. We not only pay the club's day to day bills, but indeed, paid for most of this stadium's construction. Why wouldnt we call the park anything we please?

It seems to me we're little more than lemmings, each time we dutifully ingest the corporate naming convention of an edifice we not only frequent, but actually financed. It's not so much the corporate appellation that bothers me, as it is the relative impermance of these conventions.

The bank or telecom, or whatever, pays for the rights, and that's fair - but passionate, deep rooted connections between a city and its ballteam can be trivialized by such ephemeral, short term business accords. The Diamondbacks are barely a decade old and we're already on our second stadium name. The way financial institutions collapse, merge and reinvent themselves nowadays, a third brand could easily be right around the corner. This seems inappropriate and counterproductive for a sport billing storied intergenerational appeal.

I say enough of that! Let's get behind a name that's fun, respectful of existing contracts, and permanent - reflecting the lasting connection between fans and the team. Here's my pitch:

Chase Bank & JP Morgan merged several years ago. Since Bank One Ballpark was renamed Chase Field, various wits have suggested "The Morg" (short for JP Morgan) as a sardonic snapshot of our venue's atmospherics. Hilarious name, but probably too cynical for diehard fans.

On the tail end of an interminable online flame war touching on this very topic, it came to my attention that a young lady named Morgan, the daughter-in-law of a certifiable Dbacks fan, apparently answers to the unusual but charming appellation, "The Lovely Morgan" - at least within her extended family.

Why not associate our precious park with a virtuous young woman, like they do for ships -or cool intangibles like 'liberty' and 'nature'? A woman with the same name as the bank holding company plastering its logo on the rafters for return on investment?

I have always loved the stadium. The welcoming brick plaza. The uniquely Arizonan rotunda. Inside, the mammoth green trusses, and breathtaking aperture of the roof, where telescoping steel beams evoke a delicate Chinese paper fan. The wide lower concourse circumscribing the entire playing green, beautiful sightlines within, and magical views of desert mountains from the upper deck.

Our ballpark is a beautiful, virtuous thing, like a lady.


















The Lovely Morgan
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Song of the Day - That's Not My Name (Ting Tings)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm on board with that. When people ask me where I'm going on vacation I can just say "I shall be visiting the lovely Morgan" and add a touch of mystery to my humdrum life.

Anonymous said...

lol...I believe we have a conspiracy :-)

Anonymous said...

This may sound weird, but when I hear "Morgan" in baseball circles I automatically go to that drone of an ex-player, Joe Morgan.

And that ain't lovely at all.

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you mentioned that, Jeff. This is why the adjective "Lovely" is so fresh, new and compelling.

Alot of fans do think of Joe Morgan. But The Lovely Morgan causes cognitive dissonance on the order of "Analyst Ann Coulter", forcing fans to look again, to inquire and accept...and ultimately, to blindly repeat "TLM" as a cornerstone of richer, more meaningful, lives.

I'm afraid this aint Harry Morgan from Mash, or Frank Morgan from The Wizard of OZ either.

As Russell indicates, we're paying a visit to the specifically Lovely Morgan here.

Anonymous said...

"Spend The Evening Inside The Lovely Morgan" would be a great slogan for the Diamondbacks.

Anonymous said...

To follow on Russell's idea:

"Be Like Eric Byrnes: Come and Spray Balls In the Lovely Morgan"