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When stadium names change, baseball loses more than nostalgia.

I still call it Comiskey.

Not Guaranteed Rate Field. Not whatever forgettable name they'll slap on it next quarter. Just Comiskey. Because that name meant something. It was tied to the South Side, to a legacy, to generations of fans who didn’t need a brand consultant to tell them where they were.

Same with Miller Park. I know the sign says American Family Field now. But it’ll always be Miller to me. That’s where Prince Fielder hit missiles into the upper deck and the sausage race still felt like Milwaukee weirdness, not branded content. It smelled like beer and bratwurst, not synergy and sponsorship decks.

Baseball used to be about place. The fields weren’t carbon copies. The outfield walls had odd angles, crazy dimensions. The skyline told you something about the city. And the names? They mattered. They were stitched into the memory of the game, Tiger Stadium, Crosley Field, Ebbets, Forbes, The Polo Grounds. You knew those names. You felt them. They weren’t just stadiums, they were stages for the myth.

Even the lesser-knowns had gravity, Seals Stadium, Braves Field, Municipal Stadium, Sportsman’s Park. They had grit. You could hear the reverb of old radio calls in the concrete. You didn’t need to see the field to know where you were, you heard the name, and it took you there.

Now? It’s a revolving door of banks, insurance companies, energy firms, and tech startups. Names with no soul, no roots in the game. Just money and logos. Stadiums named after pet stores and mobile carriers and tax software. You can’t build tradition with a promo code.

We’re told naming rights are just part of the modern game. That the money helps pay for contracts, scoreboards, retractable roofs. But something always gets lost in the trade. When a stadium becomes a billboard, you don’t just sell ad space, you sell memory. You erase moments. The first game with your old man. The first time you heard 40,000 people roar in unison. The way the light hit the field when you were a kid and everything felt bigger than life.

They’re not names anymore. They’re placeholders. They rotate faster than the roster. And when everything becomes temporary, you start to forget what mattered.

You start to forget where it happened.

Even the legendary parks that no longer exist, Shibe Park, Griffith Stadium, Baker Bowl, League Park, Colt Stadium, they still carry weight. They’re gone, but they’re still places. People still speak of them with reverence. Nobody's going to speak that way about Crypto.com Arena or LoanDepot Park.

And even the more modern classics are in danger. The Ballpark in Arlington was a beautiful, honest name, plainspoken, with nothing to prove. Now it's Globe Life Field, which sounds more like something you’d see on your tax return. Turner Field didn’t even last two decades before it got dumped and repurposed. The Metrodome collapsed under snow, but it had character, flaws and all. It was Minneapolis. It meant something.

Meanwhile, Camden Yards walks the line, hanging onto its name by a thread. Technically, it's Oriole Park at Camden Yards, a compromise to fend off the naming-rights vultures. But you know they’re circling. Same with Kauffman Stadium. It’s still got the name, but for how long?

Wrigley, Fenway, Dodger Stadium, they still stand. For now. They’re protected more by public resistance than any official mandate. But how long before someone floats “Amazon Field at Chavez Ravine” or “The Coca-Cola Confines”? How long before the numbers get too big to ignore?

You can already see the future: plug in a new sponsor, reprint the signage, launch the rollout video, act like nothing happened. But something does happen. The place becomes unmoored. Detached. It turns into a platform instead of a temple.

I know it makes me sound old. I know people will say, “It’s just a name.” But it’s not. It’s the doorway into a memory. It’s how you locate a story in time. When someone says “I saw Bo at The Astrodome” or “I was there when Kirby hit that walk-off at The Metrodome,” you feel it. It’s real. It lives. It breathes.

Try saying “I saw a game at Truist Park.” It’s like telling someone you went to a conference.

I still call it Comiskey. Still say Miller. Not because I’m stubborn, but because I’m rooted. I remember what it felt like to walk into a place that wasn’t trying to sell me anything, just trying to show me a ballgame. A place built with purpose, not PowerPoint.

Some names deserve to last. They’re not disposable. They’re not negotiable. They’re the scaffolding of our memories.

And I’m not letting go of them that easy.