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O’Conner: We’d like to retain Dodgertown name for Vero Beach facility

MiLB President Pat O’Conner wants to retain Historic Dodgertown as the name of the former training camp of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, but Frank McCourt and crew must sign off — and the team has already started using Dodgertown as the brand for the Dodger Stadium area.MiLB President Pat O’Conner wants to retain Historic Dodgertown as the name of the former spring-training camp of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, but Frank McCourt and crew must sign off — and the team has already started using Dodgertown as the brand for the Dodger Stadium area.

The lease MiLB signed with the city of Vero Beach gives MiLB naming rights to Holman Stadium and the rest of the Dodgertown grounds, but it doesn’t sound like O’Conner is too eager to peddle them. Smart: the world knows the complex as Dodgertown, a fact that might have been a factor in the Baltimore Orioles’ decision to pass on a spring-training lease.

The Dodgers have not signed off on the use of Dodgertown, and O’Conner plans to ask permission shortly. There’s one small problem with using the name: the Dodgers and the Los Angeles City Council have already asked the postmaster general to designate the 276 acres surrounding Dodger Stadium as Dodgertown. Now, as far as we know that’s not actually happened yet. But it probably will.

So can the world live with two Dodgertowns? We think so. There’s a lot of valuable history in Vero Beach, and no one is going to confuse the two. The Los Angeles Dodgers could help preserve that history by agreeing to do something that basically costs them nothing.

RELATED STORIES: MiLB to lease Dodgertown

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