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Baseball fans across Chicagoland are waiting in eager anticipation to see what happens now that ownership of a beloved landmark is in flux. Wrigley Field is in the process of being sold by Sam Zell, the investor who purchased the Tribune Company last year and has since decided to divest himself of the stadium.

A recent report from the Chicago Tribune indicates that a deal to buy the stadium that was in the works for the past few weeks between Zell and the state-owned Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA) is in trouble. Complications abound for this process, including assessing the cost of renovating the facility once it is purchased (estimates range from $350 to $400 million) and determining what source of funding would back the municipal bonds that would be used to buy the park.

Various voices has been raised to stop the sale of the private Wrigley Field to a public entity, primarily with the objection that the tax money that would inevitably be used to fund the purchase could be better used to fix current problems in the fiscally-strained city and state. In addition, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley seems reluctant to give in on a few fronts that could hold up the project.

One way or another baseball fans are probably going to have to get used to seeing a new corporate name appended to Wrigley Field. I, for one, am unhappy but willing to endure the change. It won’t be as bad as we fear. The park will still be there in all its aged glory, and you can never erase the history or the ambiance. If those are the things we care about most, the sale of the park to another private entity wouldn’t be that bad at all.

The possiblity of Wrigley Field losing its name has Chicagoans and baseball fans in a tizzy. And understandably so. This isn’t some new-fangled stadium born in our current era of universal corporate patronage. This is Wrigley Field, which opened in 1914 and received its current name in 1926. Few stadiums can match its antiquated charm, exemplified by the pesky but unmistakable ivy growing on the outfield wall. How could Wrigley simply cease to be Wrigley?

The new owner of the Tribune Company, Sam Zell, will be selling the team and the stadium separately. He may also put the venue’s naming rights on the auction block. The name would bring in an enormous amount of money if it is sold, which will help Zell in his task of saving the sluggish Tribune Company from its fiscal doldrums. As Gene Wojciechowski notes in an angry article about the potential sale, the Mets’ new ballpark’s name sold for $400 million. The Wrigley deal could easily eclipse that figure considering the prominence of the field.

This unnamed threat reminds me of a similar circumstance I read about last October when the name for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Business was salvaged by a group of generous alumni. Instead of giving in to the current wave of re-christening business schools in honor of major benefactors, the school was able to retain its bland-but-accurate moniker for the next 20 years. It was a refreshing story of a community preserving its heritage.

Which brings to mind a simple question: if the Wrigley naming rights go on sale, could baseball fans marshal their collective finances to protect the endangered stadium? Maybe, but who would organize the effort? And how much money could be raised? The Wisconsin donors only came up with $85 million dollars. In this case, that wouldn’t even be a good start.

The Marlins have plans for a new stadium all but wrapped up according to the AP.  No longer will they have to share Dolphin Stadium with their local NFL franchise.  This is great news as it will finally give a fifteen-year-old team that has won two world series (more championships during that time than anyone except the Yankees and Red Sox) a home to call its own.

At last my eyes won’t be wounded each time I watch a Marlins home game.  Say what you will about Dolphins Stadium as a venue for professional football, but its transformation into a baseball field was anything but attractive.  And once the NFL season got in swing toward the end of the summer, the field would inevitably bear the scars of the weekly battles on the gridiron, making the Marlins games look like an underfunded afterthought.

The catch is that the Marlins have been struggling to fill their seats.  They ranked last in attendance in 2007, averaging a paltry 16,919 fans per contest.  As reported in this blog from the Sun-Sentinel, the new stadium, to be placed on the footprint of the razed Orange Bowl, will be difficult to get to and will not be part of a neighborhood with other attractions.  When you put forth half a billion dollars to relocate a struggling team, you’d like the new home to help increase attendance and revenue.  Once the novelty of the new stadium wears off, there has to be something else there to draw in the crowds.  Let’s hope the site of the new stadium is not a mistake.

The unloved Marlins deserve to play with cheering fans at their backs.  I hope ownership can find a way to make that happen.