© Andrew Villa-USA TODAY Sports
It was announced Wednesday the home of the San Francisco Giants will now be known as Oracle Park. The reported 20-year, $200 million dollar deal with the tech giant, Oracle, marks the end of the team’s 12-year partnership with AT&T.
On Thursday, broadcaster Mike Krukow came on Murph & Mac to give his thoughts on the deal.
“I guess I shouldn’t say that I’m quite surprised about it when you consider the history,” Krukow said. “I was upset when Candlestick got renamed 3Com. (The name) Candlestick was the coolest thing about the park. Hank Greenwald used to say that was the only good thing about the park. When it became 3Com it kind of got us in condition. But the forth name change, there is some emotion attached to it because of how we felt about the AT&T people. They’re just amazing, and we got to be friends with them for a long time.”
However, when asked about the switch to Oracle, Krukow was optimistic.
“They’ve been around the ballpark forever. We’ve known them and they’ve had a strong presence in that ballpark forever. It is amazing as to how quickly it all came about, but you shouldn’t stop with Oracle. I think theres an opportunity here. It could be Willy McOracle Park or Buster P’Oracle Park. We could kind of do a little spin off of it. Bruce B’Oracle Park. I’m sure once they throw that out to Giants nation, there will be some fun they have with it, and some new names may evolve. But hey, it is a transition and it is going to be very weird seeing that ballpark with different signage.
“Of all the names, SBC was the toughest,” Krukow said of prior name changes to the park. “We all knew AT&T just kind of rolled off the tongue and by then we were conditioned to it. We had no problem with that. SBC, though, was like, ‘what?!’ That was almost as bad as 3Com.”
On whether the fans will have a negative reaction to the name change, Krukow thinks it won’t be a big deal.
“It would be an issue if it was a brand new presence, but Oracle’s been around forever and (the Warriors) are moving out of the arena over in Oakland and now, they’re going to be the Chase Center. So Oracle (whoop), right back out there, center-stage. So I think from their perspective it was a heck of a move.”
Giants fans will look forward to the opening of Pat Burr’acle Park when the team honors the 2010 championship team.
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Kruk on Oracle Park, start at the beginning.