Texas Rangers baseball field drops Ameriquest name

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The fallout among U.S. subprime mortgage lenders has a new casualty: the name of the Texas Rangers' ballpark.

The Rangers baseball team on Monday announced the ballpark, known since 2004 as Ameriquest Field, will be renamed Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Ameriquest had in May 2004 signed a 30-year naming rights agreement worth a reported $75 million, but the Rangers said they asked Ameriquest last year to end that agreement. The new name is similar to the field's original name, The Ballpark in Arlington.

Last week, Ameriquest's parent, ACC Capital Holdings Corp., said it closed four centers, eliminating an unspecified number of jobs, in what it called a "very challenging" market for making home loans to higher-risk borrowers.

The cuts followed the elimination of some 3,800 employees last May by Orange, California-based ACC. The company said it still employed about 6,000 people prior to last week's cuts.

In a statement, Rangers President Jeff Cogen said the team wanted to reclaim the naming rights as part of a new branding campaign. The Dallas Cowboys' new football stadium is scheduled to open nearby in 2009.

Rangers Ballpark in Arlington opened in 1994 and seats more than 49,000 people, according to the Rangers' Web site.