It might seem hard to imagine baseball on this freezing-cold day in early February. But pitchers and catchers will be reporting to training camp soon. And in just a handful of weeks, Texas Rangers fans can rejoice as the first pitch of the season is thrown at…
Globe Life Park in Arlington.
Okay.
It was too good to last forever, the time when the Rangers played in a facility actually named “Rangers.” Corporate naming rights are a reality, and complaining about them is about as doomed an exercise as complaining about cold in February. It’s here to stay…and, as Wrigley Field demonstrates, it isn’t even a new practice, although it’s obviously proliferated in the past two decades.
Globe Life and Accident Insurance Co. is based in Oklahoma City. It’s owned by Torchmark Corp., which is based in McKinney. Let’s just hope that the company is stable, both financially and ethically. We’ve seen Ameriquest come and go. And down in Houston, the Astros played in a place named after Enron. Whoops.
At least “Globe” and “Life” are both words that exist in dictionaries of the English language. The name isn’t some made-up CorporateWord. So, there’s that.
For the first time in the facility’s existence, “Ballpark” is no longer a part of the stadium’s name. Globe Life Park is just a Park. That’s fine. The three monosyllabic words have a bit more punch than “Globe Life Ballpark.”
The stadium retains the awkward “in Arlington” appendage. That’s permanent, as part of the deal wherein Arlington taxpayers forked over money to build the place.
I can understand why the city would want its name on there somewhere. Back in the days of old Arlington Stadium, half of North Texas called the place “Ranger Stadium.” Suburban stadiums are susceptible to their host city getting lost in translation. As is the case when NFL announcers say “We’re here in Dallas…” during Cowboys broadcasts. As those of us from around here know, Arlington is not Dallas.
So it goes. I always wanted the Rangers’ new place to be called “Arlington Field,” but for whatever reason, that’s never been an option. Not sure why…too simple, I guess.
If the naming deal can bring the Rangers money to sign the player or players that finally bring a World Series championship to Arlington, Globe Life will become my favorite Oklahoma City/McKinney-based accident insurance company. I might even take out a policy.
On Twitter, people have already mentioned calling the stadium “The Globe” for short in the same way people call Tropicana Field “The Trop,” etc.
Of course, those of us who remember English Lit classes know The Globe as the place where William Shakespeare’s plays were performed. Shakespeare wrote tragedies, comedies and histories. Like they say about passing in football, out of those three possibilities, two are bad.
But, since tragedy (David Clyde) and comedy (Doug Rader) have been played out well in the chronicles of this baseball team, let’s just hope that the Rangers will end up making history at “The Globe.”