Sam Mellinger wants to call the renovated Kauffman Stadium “The Cougar.”

My buddy Jeff Passan deserves at least half of the credit/blame for this nickname. He was at the game yesterday, writing about the A-Rod drama, and I asked him what he thought of the new digs.

“It looks great,” he said, and there was a pause. “It’s like a 38-year-old woman who got a really good facelift.”

Another pause, and then the only strike of creativity during my day, which is a shame because I was also writing the game story for today’s paper.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s like the cougar of ballparks.”

There’s a much longer explanation of why the cougar metaphor fits the Royals.