You may notice that all over town this week, people have been covering something called the "Wellstone's Dallas White Rock Marathon." I've heard that specific phrase on TV and radio this week until it echoes about my brain.

We have no such creature on this site, although you will find a listing for the "White Rock Marathon" and a page of photos of same.

We've got nothing against the fine folks at Wellstone Communities, and we think it's peachy that they sponsor the White Rock Marathon.

What I don't understand is why doing so entitles them to free advertising from every media outlet in town. Sure, their logo should be all over the Marathon's official propaganda and everything from number badges to t-shirts. But they didn't buy any ad space on our site, or on the radio and TV news for that matter.

And while the Marathon is most definitely news, Wellstone's sponsorship is not, outside of a business story when the deal is closed. That's why we list events by their proper name and not some over-long mishmash of words that tell you nothing about the event other than who paid for it.

In fact, you'll even notice that despite the fact that we have over 9,000 local places in our database, we have no listing for Ameriquest Field. But we do have a nice listing for "The Ballpark in Arlington."

There are gray areas though. If an event is created by and integral to the sponsor, it makes sense to call it by that name, although no immediate examples come to mind. And it is hard to call "The Dickies 500" anything else, because it has no other name. Back on the arena tip, there's nothing else to call The American Airlines Center, as it has never had any other name.

So sponsor names as appendages don't get added on here. And good luck to everyone running the Rock today. I'll be here in my Wellstone Home drinking Miller and watching the Verizon pregame coverage of the Home Depot-McDonalds game between the Cowboys and the Saints at Chevy Stadium.