by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The Jacksonville Suns are currently running radio ads that tout the 2003 season and the fact that it will be played in “The Jacksonville Ball Park.” That statement’s fine with City officials, just as long as the team doesn’t ever use the word “Suns” in the name of the park.
“It has always been referred to as The Jacksonville Ball Park, since day one,” said Sam Mousa, the City’s chief administrative officer. “As long as they aren’t calling it ‘The Jacksonville Suns Ball Park’ that’s OK.”
For 50 years, the Suns played in what was Wolfson Park. When the $2.2 billion Better Jacksonville Plan was passed in September 2000, four major vertical projects — as well as $1.5 billion worth of infrastructure and roadwork — were included. One of those projects was a new, 10,000-seat baseball park originally scheduled to cost $25 million and be complete in April 2001.
When the park is done in March, it will come with a price tag of $34 million — thanks to contingency money distributed by Mayor John Delaney to the ball park, arena and county courthouse. However, what may be missing is a name, specifically revenue-generating corporate sponsorship. Mousa said that may change before the Suns’ first home game April 11 against the Huntsville Stars.
“Corporate sponsorship is still a possibility,” said Mousa. “We’d like to get that done before the season starts, but it could happen during the season.”
Mousa declined to divulge which businesses the City is talking with about naming rights for the ball park. City officials have intimated in the past that corporate sponsorship of the entire sports complex may be more likely than — outside of Alltel Stadium — sponsorship for the individual venues. Mousa also said there was some discussion about simply calling the ball park Wolfson Park, the name for the past five decades.
“Thought was given to carrying over the Wolfson name, but nothing formal,” said Mousa. “There may be an opportunity for the Wolfson name to go somewhere inside the park.”
Mousa mentioned the field or, possibly, home locker room could bear the Wolfson family name.
The Suns are the Southern League’s Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. In addition to playing 67 home games in the league’s newest ball park — Delaney often refers to it as a mini-Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles — the Suns will also host the 2003 Southern League All-Star game on July 8. The Suns have not hosted the all-star game since the late 1980s and much of that is due to the fact Wolfson Park was one of the league’s oldest, most run-down parks.
Suns owner and general manager, Peter Bragan Jr., wasn’t available for comment on the park’s name, but said recently that the new park should enable Jacksonville to host the all-star game on a semi-regular basis. Each of the Southern League’s 10 teams is offered opportunity to host the game, but according to Bragan not all of them jump at the chance. The game can be expensive to put on and the host team has to pay travel expenses for players selected to the game.