The Texas Rangers' decision to rechristen their stadium the Globe Life Park in Arlington was easy enough to ignore. However lame the name might be -- and it's really, incredibly lame -- no one could stop fans from calling it Rangers Ballpark.
The blue-and-white Globe Life sign facing outward from the left-field scoreboard was impossible to ignore. At least it was for Arlington resident Leanne Rand.
"I was so disheartened this week when I drove home by the ballpark," she wrote in a letter last month to Rangers and Globe Life officials. "As I rounded the corner coming up Ballpark Way from Division Street, the new signage on the ballpark caught my eye and I am pretty sure I let out an audible gasp."
The sign that once graced the spot, with its antique-looking "Home of the Texas Rangers," had been in keeping with the ballpark designers' mission to "evoke the sense of history and tradition associated with baseball and its great old-time parks," she wrote.
This garish blue monstrosity? The stadium "has been desecrated by this offensive sign."
"My community is upset about the blemish this sign has left on what we have always considered to be the crown jewel of Arlington," she wrote. "Even the Wal-Mart down the street was held to a higher standard when it was built and signage of this sort would not be permitted on that property."
Maybe that Walmart line stung. Maybe it was the 700-plus comments on the "Arlington Proud" Facebook page. Maybe it was, as a company spokesman told the Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy on Saturday, an honest change of heart. Whatever the case, the sign will be done in green and be more in line with the park's architecture.
"Both of our organizations have discussed this at length and we agree that we should change the sign to something more appropriate to the classic, timeless look of the facility," Globe Life President Bill Leavell wrote in response to Rand's letter.
It will take some time to design and install a replacement, but "[w]e are confident we will arrive at a design that will make Rangers Republic and the entire Arlington community proud."
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