Everyone is giddy for the new White Sox ballpark in the South Loop, even without the team or the city announcing any details about their plans.

Kudos to the Sox for getting fans excited for opening day, even if it’s Opening Day 2030, and to Mayor Brandon Johnson, who figures to be long gone before the first shovel hits the ground on the ballpark construction.

If we’re rushing toward an agreement to make Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf’s new pet project come to fruition, we might as well start thinking about the naming rights.

Guaranteed Rate Field, the name of the current ballpark, never has caught on since replacing U.S. Cellular Field, which was widely known as “the Cell.” U.S. Cellular Field replaced “new Comiskey Park,” the original name in 1991 which honored the demolished ballpark across the street. Former owner Charles Comiskey named the ballpark after himself, an idea that Reinsdorf assuredly won’t copy.

No matter what name it went by, many fans still referred to the Sox’s home as “Sox Park,” an easily remembered name that spans generations.

While we anxiously await Reinsdorf and Johnson’s plan, here are 10 suggestions for the name of the new South Loop ballpark:

1. Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen Stadium

The South Loop’s most beloved restaurant deserves dibs for the new stadium name.

The classic Jewish deli is only a three-minute drive down Roosevelt Road from the proposed stadium site, and figures to be as popular for pregame dining as McCuddy’s once was for pregame drinking.

2. Rat Hole Park

The Rat Hole Preservation Society, our nickname for those anonymous do-gooders in Roscoe Village who helped save the city’s latest tourist attraction from vandalism, needs to set up a GoFundMe page for the naming rights.

The Rat Hole is a rodent-shaped crater in a sidewalk that somehow became as famous as the Bean. The Sox could even get creative and design a park with the same imprint. Rat Hole Park would be a perfect destination for a ballgame in Chicago and would honor both our favorite rodents and our history of corrupt politicians.

The only problem might be that some Sox fans already refer to Wrigley Field as “the rat hole.”

3. The 78

The area around Clark Street and Roosevelt Road is already called “the 78″ based on someone’s idea that it eventually would become the 78th neighborhood in Chicago.

“The 78″ could also be seen as an homage to the 1978 White Sox, a team that had the misfortune of following the popular ‘77 group known as the “South Side Hit Men.” Without “rent-a-players” Richie Zisk and Oscar Gamble, the stars of the Hit Men, the Sox plunged to a 90-loss season. They did however manage to acquire Claudell Washington in a trade for Bobby Bonds, and the outfielder’s inability to play hard inspired the famous banner in right field: “Washington Slept Here.”

4. Obama Yards

The world’s most famous Sox fan is former President Barack Obama, though he once called Comiskey Park “Comiskey Field” in an interview with Bob Costas.

Obama’s presidential library currently is under construction in Jackson Park and could use a bookend a few miles north. One Sox fan publicly pleaded with Reinsdorf in a Chicago Tribune op-ed to sell the team to Obama, but first things first. Naming the stadium after Obama might even convince him to attend some games.

5. Loop Park

Getting people to go back to the Loop again might be easier if it meant going to a ballpark by the same name, and the former classic rock radio station called “the Loop” would be an appropriate tie-in for nostalgic Sox fans.

A statue of Steve Dahl blowing up disco albums would look nice in center, commemorating one of the most celebrated moments in Sox history.

6. Second City Stadium

The Second City improv theater includes some of the most recognized names in comedy over the years, from John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd to Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert.

In the mid ‘90s I asked Second City alum George Wendt, a South Side Sox fan who played Norm on “Cheers,” to give his theory on the team’s attendance issues in the new Comiskey Park.

“Maybe you could’ve put it on the free TV versus cable TV thing a few years back,” Wendt replied. “But now they’re on WGN sometimes, so I don’t know. It seems like emigres to Chicago, the postgraduates who settle here in the suburbs, north or south, become Cubs fans. It seems like to be a Sox fan, you have to be born and raised on the South Side.”

That might still be true today.

7. This Space for Rent Field

A temporary solution while the Sox try to find a sponsor from the cryptocurrency world.

8. Ozzie Guillen Field

The manager of the only Sox team to win a championship since 1917 doesn’t have a statue in Guaranteed Rate Field. To make amends, the Sox could name the new ballpark after Guillen, who currently works as an analyst for NBC Sports Chicago and provides unfiltered commentary on the team’s issues.

“Meet you at ‘the Oz’” sounds like a good way to start a day.

9. Taylor Swift Stadium

Being associated with the world’s biggest pop star seemed to work well for the NFL. The Sox could use the boost in attendance, even if Reinsdorf has to pay Swift for the use of her name.

10. Sox Park

Well, this is what it will eventually be called no matter what it’s named, so why not just cut to the chase?

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Down by one point in the final 27 seconds of Wednesday’s quarterfinal game of the Class 4A girls basketball state tournament, Maple Grove needed a bucket. In order to get a bucket, it first needed a decent look at the hoop.

For 25 seconds, it had a hard time generating the latter. Everything the Crimson attempted seemed to get stuck. So, with 1.9 seconds remaining, Crimson coach Mark Cook called his second timeout of the possession.

Risky move. Inbounding the ball with so little time to play can be a challenge in itself.

The gamble paid off.

Maple Grove ran its sidelines out-of-bounds play to perfection, with inbounder Ava Cossette hitting Claire Stern in stride at the rim for the game-winning layup as time expired as the fourth-seeded Crimson topped fifth-seeded Lakeville North 56-55 at Williams Arena.

Maple Grove will meet top-seeded Hopkins at 6 p.m. Thursday at Williams Arena in the Class 4A semifinals.

Stern was freed up by a screen at the free throw line that got her loose heading toward the rim.

“Ava made a beautiful pass to me over the top,” Stern said. “It’s just my teammates that helped me get that shot. It was a really fun celebration.”

The play that created the magic was one Maple Grove (25-4) stows in its late-game bag of tricks. The Crimson included it in their morning walkthrough on Wednesday, hours ahead of the game. But, in the huddle with just two seconds to play, Stern and Bella Hanna suggested a slight change in formation to drag Lakeville North dominant forward Trinity Wilson, a Vanderbilt commit who had 17 points and 15 rebounds in the game, away from the play.

That helped free up the paint.

“That’s what I love about these kids is that their basketball IQ is so high that they see the bigger picture in ways that no team I’ve ever had does,” Cook said. “The reason why I called (the timeout) is because I felt so confident in that play that we worked on. It was like, ‘I knew we had this, I knew we had that in our wheelhouse, and I just thought, ‘You know what? Let’s live and die by this.’ ”

They survived by it. And, on the flip side, the play did the Panthers (24-6) in. Maple Grove’s heroics spoiled an impressive rally by the Panthers, who trailed by nine points at the half.

Lakeville North turned up its defense and execution in the second half, slowly chipping away at the Crimson advantage. Finally, with 27 seconds to play, the Panthers took their first lead since early in the first half on a putback from Elayna Boe, who scored 13 points.

“I think we just came together as a team and decided that we didn’t want to lose this game,” Wilson said. “And we knew that in the past we’ve come back from even bigger deficits in the past.”

That experience led to a poised performance from the Panthers, who were making their third-straight state tournament appearance. Lakeville North often appeared to be in control of the game down the stretch, right up until the very final ticks.

“We know how to play in tight games, and we just try to stay poised as much as possible,” Wilson said. “And I think we did a decent job of that. It just didn’t work out.”

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Police announced Wednesday they’ve arrested a 20-year-old St. Paul man who they say recently fired a rifle at a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy in St. Paul.

The deputy wasn’t injured, but the sheriff’s office said at the time that a projectile went through the front hood of the vehicle he was driving and struck the deputy in his ballistic vest strap near his collarbone. The suspect was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Ramsey County jail on suspicion of attempted murder, first-degree assault and drive-by shooting.

It happened March 1 when St. Paul police say their officers saw someone driving recklessly at Payne Avenue and Jessamine Street. They tried to pull over the driver, but the car sped away.

The officers didn’t pursue and told law enforcement in the area that the car hadn’t stopped for them. Deputy Joe Kill, who was on patrol, heard the dispatch, found what he believed to be the car and used his red lights and siren to attempt to stop it,  Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at the time. When the driver didn’t stop, Kill pursued the car.

“Suddenly, the passenger in that vehicle leaned out and fired shots at him using a rifle. Thankfully, Deputy Kill was not injured,” said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

A person fired at least two rounds from an AR-style rifle, while “hanging out the passenger window” of the vehicle that Kill was pursuing while in the 900 block of Euclid Street, Fletcher has said.

Officers searched for the car and found it in the 1000 block of Pacific Street. Police also located two .223 rifle casings on Euclid Avenue and took them into evidence, the sheriff’s office said.

On Wednesday morning, St. Paul officers carried out a search warrant in the 1000 block of Pacific Street, which is where they arrested the 20-year-old.

A 17-year-old suspected of being the driver turned himself in at police headquarters just after 9 a.m. Wednesday. He was arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting second-degree murder, first-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault, along with fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle.

The situation happened just under two weeks after Burnsville police officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge and Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth were shot and killed after officers responded to a 911 call.

On Monday night, police say a 25-year-old man shot at Oakdale police officers, ran into a home and continued to fire at them before barricading himself inside. At least one officer exchanged gunfire with the man. Neither the officers nor the man were injured, and he was arrested.

Assaults on law enforcement in Minnesota have been climbing in recent years — they were up 152 percent last year compared to 2019.

On average, 388 officers were assaulted each year in the decade up to 2019. There have been an average of 1,041 assaults per year between 2020 and 2023, according to a Pioneer Press analysis of Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension data from local law enforcement agencies.

Most of the assaults resulted in minor or no injuries, but some officers paid the ultimate price. Since January 2023, nine first responders have been fatally shot in the region and 16 have been wounded by gunfire.

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