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Politics and baseball are reasonably similar. Both are games played all across the country by talented partisans. Both are particularly American institutions.

An MBA student at the Wharton School has sought to bring them closer together by sharing a passion for Barack Obama through t-shirts featuring the candidate’s name in the style of MLB team names. The shirts sold for $19.99 on the Web site ObamaofDreams.com until last month when the site’s owner received a cease-and-desist letter from attorneys for baseball.

Baseball protects its business interests very closely and this situation is just another example. A court battle in 2006 ensued over whether baseball had copyright rights over the statistics of its players when used in fantasy baseball leagues. The judge ultimately ruled against the very broad interpretation of copyright law that the league’s lawyers tried to defend. Likewise in this case, it is not clear that any trademark infringement occurred since there may not be a likelihood of confusion between baseball shirts and pieces of propaganda for political candidates. Copyright claims are also not straightforward in this case. But a small-time vendor isn’t going to fight.

Word has reached the press that the Texas Rangers, a perennial disappointment in the AL West, have already thrown in the towel on the whole season. It’s sad but true. They’ve signed Sir Sidney Ponson to a minor league deal and invited him to camp.

Let’s tally up the stats: Ponson last played in the majors on May 12, 2007—not because he was ailing but because his team couldn’t stand getting blown out in the games he started. Ponson is listed at ESPN.com as 6’1” 258 lbs and that ain’t muscle folks. Ponson hasn’t had an ERA below five since 2003. In that time, Ponson has accumulated 36 losses while only pitching in 79 games, no mean accomplishment. He has also racked up at least a couple of DUI charges in the meanwhile.

I had a journalism professor mention that the better the publication that hires you, the more willing you should be to work for a pittance. He used The New Yorker as an example of the sort of magazine for which you might work gladly on a discounted rate. I quipped to my friends that I’d pay David Remnick if he’d just let me get his coffee.

Kidding aside, I think it’s important to invoke the David Remnick Rule in Ponson’s case. No salary is low enough to take this guy on. He ought to be paying the Rangers instead. No word yet on whether that’s the arrangement.

But Ponson does prove one thing that pleases the dreamer in me: You might be just a few DUIs away from a knighthood.

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.