The Municipal Credit Union – the City’s largest credit union – will be picking up the tab that Keyspan Energy/National Grid is leaving behind, and the stadium will become MCU Park. The Brooklyn Paper reports:

“MCU and the Cyclones are a great fit,” said Cyclones General Manager Steve Cohen. “All of their members are workers like firefighters and cops — and that really matches our fan base.”

Later, he added, “Hey, at least we’re not selling out to TARPBank like the parent club, right?” (No, I’m kidding, he didn’t really say that.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little weary of all of these stadiums changing their names every time the economy twitches a little. Like this year’s Super Bowl being played in Joe Robbie Stadium Pro Player Stadium I don’t even remember what they’re calling it now.

So to help the Cyclones come up with a new stadium name that will stand the test of time, I have submitted these five suggestions.

5. Chase Bank Field – Since any bank that buys the naming rights will eventually be bought up by Chase anyway, lets just save ourselves the merger baby steps and skip right to the endgame. Chase Bank Field will also be the name of the baseball stadium built across the street.

4. The House That Rudy Built – Technically, this could also be the name of the Staten Island Yankees stadium. But Richmond County Bank currently holds the naming rights there – see #5.

3. Ebbets Field – Because I’m a 32-year-old Brooklyn baseball fan and I’m still living 53 years in the past. I’m looking forward to explaining to my son the purpose of Burn Walter O’Malley In Effigy Night.

2. The Tidy Bowl – As opposed to the other bowls on the Rabbit’s Isle, which are most decidedly NOT tidy.

1. Brooklyn Shore – Where Mets orange body paint is a good tan and “The Situation” is code for cleaning up after Sandy The Seagull.

I can’t imagine how much it would cost to see Carlos Beltran in a Mets uniform at Citi Field from the ninth row behind third base. More bailout bucks than I’m willing to part with, I’m sure. To see him in his rehab appearance with the Cyclones? Fifteen U.S. dollars.

As the Cyclones designated hitter, Beltran drove in a run in his first at-bat and drew a walk later in the game.

Too bad his temporary team is doing their best impression of its big league parent – the 4-2 loss to the Hudson Valley Renegades (whose stadium is at a commuter parking lot a mile away from the commuter train station, true story) puts them half a game behind the Staten Island Yankees, who won their game last night in St. George. If nothing else, at least the Cyclones have already clinched a wild-card playoff spot.

Last Saturday evening, I headed down to Brooklyn Union Gas Stadium to watch the Cyclones game. That evening’s game was against the Oneonta Tigers. Oneonta: for the Google-map impaired, that is a town in Upstate New York, along I-88, roughly halfway between Binghampton and Albany.

What’s that, you say? It isn’t called Brooklyn Union Gas Staudium? Well, pah. I can’t keep track of all of the name changes of our preeminent natural gas utility company. Apparently, neither can stadium officials, since they still have the old name of the company plastered on the side of the ballpark. I’m going with Brooklyn Union Gas Staudium until it gets old – and then probably a little longer.

I’m not so crazy about the bleacher seats, but just about every other seat in the house is a great seat. And the most expensive seats are $15 each… it’s really hard to go wrong.

The Race of the Condiments.

I GOT TWENTY BUCKS ON RELISH!!!!!  YEEEEAAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!

I just commented on an article in the Brooklyn Paper about dipping attendance at Cyclones games this year, but it looks like a pretty good crowd to me (seen here waiting for t-shirts to fall out of the sky) (no, rlly). In addition to my ten smart-ass theories, here’s a real one: maybe attendance has been so good the first eight years of the franchise, that even a year that is merely amazingly above average is the worst in franchise history.

I’ve been to a number of in-stadium team stores across the Northeast – including three NHL arenas, two National League stadiums, two Division I-A football stadiums, and an NFL stadium. Granted – most of these were older buildings, but the Cyclones amazingly have the nicest team store of the bunch.

YO ADRIAN!!!!!!

It took the Cyclones nine innings to score their first and only run – at least they managed to force an extra inning, but ended up losing to the Tigers in the tenth, dropping their first-place record to 35-21.

Coney Island has fireworks on Friday nights in the summer, but the Cyclones gave this week a bonus round on Saturday. Compared to the Friday night version (which I visited two weeks ago), I thought this started off rather wimpy – and that’s what you see in this video. But after I shut the camera off, the display continued to crescendo, and most of the rest of the display was good and fun to watch.

By the way – what’s with Howard Dean 0:07?