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You are here: Home / Archives for Cleveland Indians Nickname

December 28, 2020 By Ed Rice

This Penobscot baseball player inspired the Cleveland Indians name ‘for all the wrong reasons’ by Emily BurnhamDecember 18, 2020                      Bangor Daily News Louis Sockalexis, in an undated photo taken during his professional baseball career between 1897 and 1907. Credit: Public domain It was a historic day in 1897 when Louis Sockalexis, a 26-year-old member of the Penobscot tribe, became the first Native American Major League Baseball player, taking the field for … [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

Cleveland to Drop Controversial Nickname

December 21, 2020 By Ed Rice

Cleveland Indians to drop controversial nickname affiliated with player from Maine’s Penobscot Nation by Larry Mahoney, Bangor Daily News December 15, 2020   Ed Rice’s phone was ringing off the hook on Monday. People wanted to talk about the news that Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians intend to abandon their longstanding name, one that is considered by many to be offensive. “I am stunned,” said an elated Rice, who has spent nearly 40 years researching and telling the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

Cleveland to Change Nickname

December 21, 2020 By Ed Rice

He’s why Cleveland came to be called the Indians. How should they honor him? Members of one Maine tribe hope that the team’s first know Native American player, trailblazer Louis Sockalexis of the Penobscot Nation, is properly recognized. by Erik Ortiz, NBC News                                                                             December 14, 2020 Erik Ortiz is a staff writer for NBC News focusing on racial injustice and social inequality. Cleveland's major-league baseball team … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

Neither Chief Wahoo nor the Indians’ nickname honor the Penobscot man that inspired them

February 1, 2018 By Ted Berg

Neither Chief Wahoo nor the Indians’ nickname honor the Penobscot man that inspired them

By: Ted Berg, Writer for USA Today | February 1, 2018 11:54 am Earlier this week, after continued pressure from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, the Cleveland Indians announced they will strip the controversial Chief Wahoo logos from their on-field uniforms starting in 2019. The club will still sell some merchandise with the racist imagery, but doing so will prevent others from profiting off use of the smiling, red-faced caricature. The Cleveland club began using early version of Chief Wahoo … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

Curse of Sockalexis, Means casts dark shadow on Cleveland’s World Series dreams

October 25, 2016 By Ed Rice

Curse of Sockalexis, Means casts dark shadow on Cleveland’s World Series dreams

Ed Rice Special to the Bangor Daily News Not meant to be anywhere near as darkly humorous as Boston’s celebrated “Curse of the Bambino” or the Chicago Cubs’ concerns about curses related to a billy goat or a reviled fan named Bartman, a curse from the late Native American political activist Russell Means was put on the Cleveland Indians baseball team for its inappropriate nickname and racist caricature logo/mascot, Chief Wahoo. His curse specifically directs that the team make it to the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

Mainer confronts Cleveland Indians execs in quest to honor Penobscot Indian player

September 1, 2014 By Ed Rice

Mainer confronts Cleveland Indians execs in quest to honor Penobscot Indian player

By Ed Rice, Special to the Bangor Daily News As my plane winged its way to Cleveland last week, on my way to give a library talk in praise of Maine Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis and against the Cleveland Indians’ continuing use of Chief Wahoo, I began imagining myself as being something like the Jimmy Stewart character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Upon my return trip to Bangor — after thinking about a solitary walk around Progressive Field that left me infuriated by the Cleveland … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

The Cleveland Indians need to learn same lesson Ohio schoolchildren have learned: Ed Rice

October 18, 2013 By Ed Rice

By Guest Columnist/cleveland.com on October 18, 2013 at 4:39 PM ORONO, MAINE -- The Cleveland Indians organization has never had any real understanding -- or appreciation -- of what it has in the historical figure of Louis Sockalexis, a man who almost certainly broke professional baseball’s color barrier, a man who was definitively the first-known American Indian to play, a man who went through the exact same experience Jackie Robinson endured 50 years after him but never gets any comparable … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

Cleveland nickname does not honor Sockalexis

April 3, 2004 By Ed Rice

This story was published on April 03, 2004 on Page D1 in all editions of the Bangor Daily News (Editor’s note: In this second of three columns on disrespect to Native Americans in the world of sports and, particularly, disrespect to a Maine Indian legend, Louis Sockalexis, author Ed Rice discusses how Louis Sockalexis inspired the nickname “Indians” the major league team in Cleveland uses to this day, but is in no way honored by the continuing specter of the racist caricature, Chief … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cleveland Indians Nickname

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Categories

  • Baseball Hall of Fame Disrespect (6)
  • Cleveland and Chief Wahoo (6)
  • Cleveland Indians Nickname (8)
  • First-Known Indian Player? (1)
  • Indian Nicknames/Mascots in Maine (15)
  • Sockalexis and Negro League (1)
  • Sports Illustrated Disrespect (2)
  • Statue for Sockalexis? (3)
  • Uncategorized (2)

Recent Posts

  • (no title) January 26, 2021
  • (no title) December 28, 2020
  • Cleveland to Drop Controversial Nickname December 21, 2020
  • Cleveland to Drop Controversial Nickname December 21, 2020
  • Cleveland to Change Nickname December 21, 2020
  • Celebrating end of Indian mascots in Maine high schools August 30, 2020
  • Skowhegan has opportunity again to cleanse itself of insensitive mascot January 24, 2019
  • Hidden heroes have done the right thing on Indian mascots January 24, 2019
  • ‘Friends of Sockalexis’ raising funds for monument honoring Indian Island baseball pioneer March 23, 2018
  • Demise of Cleveland’s ‘Chief Wahoo’ opens the door for proper recognition of Maine’s Sockalexis February 13, 2018

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