Marty, I think you are onto somethng here.

Let's get Ralph Lauren on the line and see if he would be interested in a piece of Americana.  Maybe, for a few years it could be known as the Polo Grounds by Ralph Lauren.

Gets Citi off the hook and saves a few buck, and think of the paint schemes we could work with.

Yeah but:  Isn't this just a form of advertising?  Don't retail banking institutions have to advertise in a competitive market?  I mean, you wouldn't have Citi stop running all its TV ads for that 20 year period, or take down all its billboards, etc.  I don't know how much all that costs -- no idea -- but I bet it's a whole lot, and nobody would begrudge those expenditures.  In fact, maybe you get more advertising bang for your buck with naming rights.

Oh, stop talking sense jhildner - this is The Spine.

This is delicious news for a Nats fan. Sure, you Mets fans might have, like, good players and a winning team and competent franchise ownership and nice uniforms and actual fans who show up at your gleaming new ballpark and all, but ... nyah nyah nyah Citi Field nyah nyah nyah!

I think the only decent thing to do is to use Citi's money and change the name to Taxpayer Memorial Stadium. Like all the Veteran's Memorial Stadiums of old, including the one where my hometown minor-league Kernels still play.

Rhubarbs said:

"This is delicious news for a Nats fan."

Somewhere, a single tear is running down Dan Gladden's cheek.

bone, if so, it's only because Dan Gladden spends the offseason standing on a ridge by the highway in western Minnesota, and he just saw the driver of a wood-paneled station wagon throw litter out onto the highway. Because there's no contradiction between being a Nats fan and being a Twins fan. They play in different leagues, and don't play each other again in interleague until 2010.

Besides, in the deepest possible sense, all Twins fans are by definition also Nats fans, since the Twins are the Washington Senators, who were never officially called the Senators until like two years before they moved to Minnesota, so the Twins are actually the Nationals. And dig this: The Twins franchise record for triples is held by Goose Goslin, who set the record at 20 playing for the Nats in Washington in 1925, and by Cristian Guzman, who tied the record playing for the Twins in 2000, and now Guzman plays for the Nats in Washington.

Rhubs, good point about the Twins/Nats connection.   And the Guzman/Goslin thing did, in fact, blow my mind.  I was just tweaking you, and never- but never!- pass up a chance to mention Danny Gladden.  I was going to say Kent Hrbek but wasn't positive I was spelling it correctly.

The Houston Astros won a pennant playing in Enron Field ... oops! Minute Maid Park. Meanwhile, the Mets were already spooked at old Shea Stadium, so I doubt if things will get worse.