Cleveland Indians Nickname
‘Guardians’ is fine, and fine is good enough
CLEVELAND, OHIO --[The Guardians of Traffic sculptures on the Hope Memorial Bridge near Progressive Field are the inspiration for the renaming of the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians at the end of the 2021 season. The Indians announced the change at Progressive Field on July 23, 2021, in Cleveland, Ohio. ]
This Penobscot baseball player inspired the Cleveland Indians name ‘for all the wrong reasons’
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 the Cleveland Spiders.
Cleveland Indians to drop controversial nickname affiliated with player from Maine’s Penobscot Nation
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.
Cleveland to Change Nickname
Cleveland’s major-league baseball team announced Monday that it will drop its “Indians” nickname — in place for more than a century — to “unify our community,” a decision quickly praised by Native American groups, including some members of a Maine tribe with a historic connection to the team.
Neither Chief Wahoo nor the Indians’ nickname honor the Penobscot man that inspired them
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.
Curse of Sockalexis…
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.