The sign says “Miller Park” but truth be told, it should've read, “For Sale.”
The stadium the Brewers call home is still very much ours. The name that adorned it since its 2001 christening, though, is a fleeting thing, a point driven home with this week's news that American Family Insurance bought the naming rights effective 2021. Judging by the reaction, you would've thought we were talking about changing out the city of Milwaukee flag.
Oh, wait.
The smells of burning hair filled the southeast Wisconsin air and heads turned to pink mist, exploding as word of the ballpark change sunk in. Social media erupted (no surprise) and the radio waves crackled with hot takes from those who aren't cool with the change. Some folks took it to the extreme.
“I still call it County Stadium,” one caller told John Mercure on Wisconsin's Afternoon News, which made me wonder if that same caller thinks of the Brewers as “the Braves” and Mayor Barrett as “Mayor Maier” as they desperately seek out Ward Allen and Albert the Alley Cat each night on the Channel 6 news. What does this change mean for the stadium sales tax, someone else asked on air, apparently not realizing that it's too late for George Petak to take back his vote that made the levy a reality back in the 90's.
Say this about those who live in these climes: we never let go of a good grudge, and we take to change the way a cat takes to a sink full of water.
The name “Miller Park” was a rental, a title that made a perfect fit for a team, a city and a company with a legacy of being an athletic supporter but one that, like the beer the brewery makes, came with a shelf life. It was only going to last as long as Miller wanted to keep paying for it to stay. That time apparently is up–that, or AmFam's offer was simply too good to refuse (see “Klement's Racing Sausages” and “Johnsonville”). Brewers Nation survived The Great Pork Product Contretemps, and it'll get used to American Family Insurance Field, too.
Or whatever they decide to call the place.
Naming rights are as much a part of modern sports as TV time outs and overpriced concessions. Everything has to be monetized in order to generate the kind of money needed to pay today's salaries. And, since the best players get the biggest contracts, it never hurts to have plenty of cash on hand. Brewers fans remember what it was like when we had one of baseball's smallest payrolls and, having come to within a win of a National League pennant last fall, the front office has no appetite for a return to those low-budget days. The best marketing any team in any sport can do is to win. The Brewers brass is already chirping about season ticket renewals that stand at 98% after last autumn's hijinks, as well as a fan event this weekend that sold out days if not weeks ahead of time, something that NEVER happened before.
Like Miller, American Family is a Wisconsin business, one that's vowing to do more around here than just switch out a few signs (and the cup holders) at the ball yard. There's talk of a downtown office building and other civic promises, all coming on top of what AmFam shelled out to slap it's logo on Summerfest's soon-to-be-redone amphitheater.
The Journal/Sentinel's George Stanley is using the switch-out as a chance to include an homage to all-time home run king Hank Aaron. If Brewers baseball has a Mount Rushmore, “The Hammer's” is certainly one face that belongs upon it. To single out one person for ballpark naming honors, though, is a debate that can rage in barrooms and on sports talk radio for hours. Aaron, Bud Selig, Bob Uecker and Robin Yount all have statues and retired numbers that adorn the edifice. Maybe it's best to leave it even-steven.
After all, we can only process so much change around here at a time.
Some folks still refer to that tall white building at the corner of Wisconsin and Van Buren as the First Wisconsin Center even though US Bank's signage adorned it for almost two decades. And how many of us call the place where the Admirals play by it's proper title (UW/Milwaukee Panther Arena)? There are probably folks who still think John McCullough is just on vacation, waiting patiently for him to return to the ten o'clock Channel 4 anchor chair. Math is hard but for Milwaukee, change is graduate-level trigonometry. Our slogan should be “leave it the way it was.”
We have two more years to process what's happening at the local baseball venue. What happens between the lines on its emerald expanse will be remembered far longer than anything that gets hung on the outside wall behind home plate. Names change. Memories linger fondly. And change, in these parts, is as painful as a kidney stone.
You'll excuse me now while I get ready for my upcoming interview with Mayor Zeidler.