Mays Field Party Tomorrow! Help Spread the Word!

Our first Mays Field party will be at the Brickhouse during and after tomorrow's 1:05pm game:

The Brickhouse
426 Brannan Street (between 3rd and 4th)
SF, CA  94107
415.369.0222
Directions from Mays Field

Help us spread the word by downloading this one-page flyer (PDF, 531 KB) and sharing it with your friends.  And be sure to wear some Mays Field gear to get $1 off each and every beer.

Comments

[Flaxseed Distributor]

Mays Field. Ahh...that has a nice ring to it. The Giants should definitely name the stadium Mays Field. Great idea. I mean, I really hate it that my favorite team stands to earn $100M in naming rights from SBC. How silly!! They don't need that! Especially with a name like Mays Field. They would easily recoup the hundred mil because the name would be so much more aesthetically pleasing. I bet the players would play for free if it were called that. And I'd go all the time. Great fucking idea!

[Curtis Maysfield]

hey bum fan,

Nice of you to drop by. You know, I don't think we'll ever know what effect that 4.5m/year would actually have on the payroll. If you believe these owners are losing money on this franchise or are putting as much towards payroll as a club drawing second to the yanks since the park opened should be, you are fooling yourself.

This park is a dream tax-shelter, and as long as they run out a *competetive* team out there, they can pocket the rest. God forbid the fans actually have any ambitions whatsoever in regards to the park or their team. Hit the bricks....

[Daniel Ben-Horin]

I find it fascinating to note the difference in how people perceive the campaign. Some people, such as flaxseed, seem to think we're trying to get *someone else*--SBC, The Giants...maybe even the City of SF--to do something, i.e. officially rename the field. Others understand that we don't really care what anyone does officially, i.e. that this is really all about controlling our own words. I'm right there with flaxseed--I want the Giants to have all the money they can get to stockpile those middle relievers. Someone is going to give the Giants big bucks to have their name in lights on Mays Field and I'm darn happy for them. But from my pov, SBC's naming rights stop at my lips.

It's interesting to think about just what $55 million buys. It buys your sign at the stadium, for sure. It buys your brand's positioning in anything official issued by the Giants. But when you're talking to a friend about meeting for a game, do you say, "Ok, let's meet down at SBC park?" I seriously doubt it. I'm going to guess you say, "Let's meet at the statue," or "Let's meet at the seats." My point is that on the most basic level the Mays Field campaign is already won. No one *likes* associating these corporate letters with a fun game, so we all come up with our individual workarounds. And all the Mays Field campaign is doing is providing a positive fun alternative, one that actually has something to do with the Giants and baseball.

There's no big hurry here. About 30 people drank and ate and had a good time at the Brickhouse yesterday after the game. T-shirts were acquired, bumper stickers distributed etc. I'm going to guess that if Michael Tucker had hit one of his somewhat more standard issue grounders to second in the 8th, we would have half as many people and a lot fewer laughs. So it goes.

Eventually, I predict, this meme will get propogated. Radio announcers and deejays will find ways of saying Mays Field and then, in officially correcting themselves, propogate the meme even further. Print media people will have fun with it. And in time SBC will realize it has more to gain by trying to couple its brand with Mays Field in some fashion than in resisting it. We'll see.

In the meantime, my biggest takeaway from yesterday was that the Mays Field crew is exactly whom I like to talk Giants with after a nice win. A tailgate party is in the works. Likewise, meetups for tube viewing of away games.

-Jerome Williams

[Flaxseed Distributor]

This is cute, Curtis:

"This park is a dream tax-shelter"

Actually, that's not as much cute as it is retarded. The park does, in fact, save the Giants from some taxes because it costs a lot of money, and the more money the Giants spend, the lower their income. Thus lower taxes.

But the naming rights -- which are the issue here -- create revenue. Revenues increase income and as a side effect increase taxes. And keep in mind that money is good. It allows our team the opportunity to hire talent, and maybe even stay here. Sure, it seemed swell when they were about to move to Tampa, but it has turned out that Tampa is not a great place for great baseball.

[Ed]

Flaxseed,
I'm enjoying this exchange of views, but I think you're missing the point. If you skipped over Daniel's comment, I encourage you to read it. If you do, you'll understand that we have no interest in taking money out of the Giants pockets. More power to 'em!

But there's no reason why we have to call it SBC Park just because the Giants sold the naming rights. Do you call the Niners' stadium Monster Park? Or Candlestick?

We just want people to know that there's an alternative name out there--one that has a lot more to do with San Francisco's baseball history.