Pac Bell, no, SBC, no, Ma Bell, no AT&T Park?

With the special election a week and a half away, it is time to focus on the renaming of baseball stadiums. The San Francisco Giants (Go Giants!) new stadium only opened in 2000. But it will soon have its thirdname because of corporate mergers. The Chronicle reports: The name of the Giants' ballpark, which gets changed almost as often as the Giants change pitchers, is about to change again. It's not going to be SBC Park anymore. It's going to be something else. That's because SBC Communications Inc. said Thursday that it will adopt the name AT&T Inc. after it finishes acquiring that company, a $16 billion deal expected to be official by the end of the year. The name will spread to all of SBC's properties. "Once we announce the merger is complete, then we do intend to move to a single brand," said John Britton, spokesman for SBC. "We'll of course work with the Giants to make the transition." The new corporate owners weren't saying exactly what the ballpark's new name would be -- AT&T Park or AT&T Field or AT&T Stadium -- but presumably it will be something with AT&T in it. Not that a new corporate name makes much of a difference, but I would really like to have the name of my home stadium stay consistent. Wrigley Field, after all, is a gum stadium. But it is a tradition in its own right.