Slightly OT: Could the Braves and Indians be next?
 

And I'm posting this because teams such as the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians may be next

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/busin...ise/index.html

Now, I'm ALL in favor of the important National discussion about this but as I noted on my FB page, you can't change the almost 90 year history now can we?

And does that mean eBay may pull a similar move in the near future?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/us/re...mes/index.html

Why can't you change the name? Because it's been a while? The Washington Bullets aren't the Bullets anymore. The Devil Rays aren't the Devil Rays anymore. The Mighty Ducks aren't the Mighty Ducks. The Yankees aren't the Highlanders anymore either.

I have seen "Washington Warriors' floated around, going back to the spear and feather logo of the 60's....looks good to me.

Braves is different. They have worked hard with American Indians to craft the right logo and message. They still struggle with whether to stop the Tomahawk chant, and don't pass out foam tomahawks anymore. (I remember as a kid going to games and seeing Chief Knock-a-homa come out of his tent in the stands....that was so cool).

Cleveland Indians - whatever. Their football team is the Cleveland Browns- dull. (No disrespect to Cleveland).

Personally, I think the Redskins should keep their name and just change their logo to a red skin potato.

Love it. How about Washington Senators or Nationals?

Note 60's logo. I think it's cool and stays with historical team. Washington Warriors'.

They could be next
 

All I know is that my all time favorite uniforms in ANY sport are the Boston/Milwaukee Braves unis from the late 40's to the early 60's (gotta have the tomahawk). I wear my Mitchell and Ness Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews jerseys proudly, and I don't mean to offend anyone. They're just beautiful uniforms.

And the Blackhawks have the best sweater in hockey.

Chief Knock-a-homa. (BTW, he is still alive...and agrees with Redskins name change. But thinks Braves and Indians are fine).

Grew up in Atlanta with this. As a kid, I loved it.

Until some of you experience genocide, cultural annihilation, years of reneged promises and treaties, and overt racism I just don’t think you’ll get it. Here’s hoping for a change though.

I think they should change the names. But that's just my opinion.

I also think they will.

As an Indians fan and Northeast Ohio native, I don't understand the push for the name change. I didn't see the need to remove Chief Wahoo, either. I grew up with Chief Wahoo, and thought the color was red because the Indians colors are Red, White, and Blue. I never once associated it with skin color. I've been called a racist for supporting Chief Wahoo/the Indians, but how is it racist when I don't see skin color/race?

With that being said, I'm tired of fighting it. Change the name, I don't give a damn. If it makes someone else sleep better at night because they associate a team name and cartoon with some sort of racism/oppression, let them have that. I will still continue to wear my Indians gear and go to ball games. Of course I'd buy some new gear, too, but I'm not depriving my future kids of baseball because of a team name/logo.

The Cleveland Spiders were the first professional baseball team in Cleveland (not associated with the Cleveland Indians franchise), and that is reportedly an option. Some people want a team name associated with the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame (The Cleveland Rocks or something like that). Whatever they do, don't half ass it. Make it badass, and let's move on.

I don't give a flying hoot about the Redskins either. Quite frankly, I don't see a bunch of people traveling to the Dakotas to protest on the behalf of Native Americans. A team name and logo hardly fight for anything substantial. They think it's the way people think that they need to change but it's really the system (I personally don't believe the people in this country are as racist as the media leads us to believe). A team name and logo don't touch the system. But whatever.

Can we play ball already? We need a break from all the BS as a society.

I saw someone mention that they should change the Redskins to the Redwolves because it's the nick name for an elite navy helicopter squadron, you can keep some so of native american thing going cause wolves are important in native culture, wolves are just cool animals, and the defense can have a cool nick name in wolf pack. They could also keep the same color scheme with the red and gold.

Also the Washington Redwolves just sounds really cool

Well stated. People never seem to be able to just move on from the crap in society.
Play ball everyone and enjoy your life! There are always MUCH bigger problems...

Nicknames
 

Why do we need nicknames? Isn't "Cleveland" enough? People can figure it out.

I don't think the Braves and Indians HAVE to change their name as it is a people and not a degrading term, but I think they probably will. I think Notre Dame Fighting Irish will probably also and Washington & Lee is having a horrible time figuring out what to do.

Washington Smurfs

Welcome to the brave, new world of PC, where anybody and everybody can get their panties in a twist and take offense over anything - and everything - that possesses them. We can blame / trace all these proposed team name changes to the actions of that murderous, dumb ass, effing cop in Minneapolis. That was the so called straw that broke the camel's back. This is just an extension of that knee on the neck murder.

They've been talking about changing the Redskins name in the DC area for probably the last 10 years at different levels of seriousness. It's not exactly a new topic of conversation for us at least.

Changing the Indians almost seems like a backfire of a move to me. Their name was changed from the Spiders informally at first (as often happened in the early days) to honor their best player Louis Sockalexis a Penobscot Indian and was later formally adopted by the team. I'd rather see more of an emphasis on honoring the man than forgetting what, in this case, is a positive history.

Redskins however is a derogatory term and I am all for changing it.

The Atlanta Braves have made it clear they are not going to change. Now we have these idiots wanting to deface Stone Mountain! When is this bullshit going to end? Enough is enough!!

How about the Washington Wanabes seeing how they have only won 3 playoff games since their SuperBowl in 1991? Sorry, just being sarcastic.... All of this name changing is just a bunch of garbage, period... People, get a life and move on with your freaking lives

How would you like to have all of your property confiscated by the government and be confined on a reservation and not allowed to leave? It has nothing to do with PC. Native Americans don’t want their names and imagery used by a group of people who has treated them poorly for 400 years. How about changing the name to the Washington Blackskins and have a white guy dressed up in black face on the sideline. Would that be ok?

Spiders would be great, seems to be a possible pick so maybe....

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I think the Washington Corruptos would be more appropriate in a salute to the governing bodies.

You do realize that if a population isn't marginalized they don't care if you use them as a mascot or a nickname. It's not a double standard unless there's a double standard in how the group in question is treated in the first place. If Native Americans had no other complaints then there likely would be no issue with the nicknames. Unless you feel the Golden Girls was discriminatory I don't think there are many Norwegians in the Northern plains who feel they've been systemically victimized by society.

Cleveland Buckeyes
 

Something to think about going back in history for a name.

Angyale

+1

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Also, the Alleghenies aren't the Alleghenies and the Innocents aren't the Innocents.

Obligatory post of a card. I’m not a t206 guy, but I am attracted to the rarity of this beauty. Alas, As with the other rare beauties I’ve been attracted to in my life, I don’t have one of these either.

The Atlanta Braves could simply go back to using the franchise's original name, the Beaneaters. :D

And the cheering crowd would chant.......:-)

And instead of the tomahawk chop and chant, the fans could all just fart in appreciation of their beloved Beaneaters. A fitting tribute to this name-change trend.

I find it endlessly ironic that people will get so bent out of shape about two teams changing their names who aren't even going by the original names of the franchises anymore. Because the original names WERE CHANGED.

The only part of your post that is factual is the reneged promises and treaties, of which nobody alive today had any involvement.

Indian tribes were butchering and scalping each other long before Europeans arrived on the scene. If genocide was the goal, it was a miserable failure. There are far more people alive today with Indian ancestry than in 1800, with far greater life expectancy.

The only reason we know of great Indian leaders like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse is because of the written English language, and photography. The reason we know virtually nothing about the great Indians of 500 or more years past, is that the Indians weren't able to record their history until Europeans began documenting it for them. Indian words are memorialized forever in the names of our cities, states, rivers, lakes, etc.

As we know, several Indians were in the Big Leagues going back to the turn of the last century, and generally, they were extremely popular. In fact, Cleveland's team was named after one of them. Overt racism at some point in distant history, sure. But no one alive today was involved in the Indian wars. That was other people in another time.

Have you ever been to a reservation? You are familiar with the Trail of Tears?

Yes, the Trail of Tears was a bad thing that happened 170 years ago. Nobody alive today is to blame for it and nobody alive today was forced from their homeland.

I have been to a Blackfoot reservation in Montana when I was young (to visit my uncle and his family,) I'm aware of the poverty in reservations near Grants, New Mexico, and I go to the racetrack/casino, Canterbury Park, in Shakopee MN, where My buddies and I stable our racehorse for the summer. There is a Sioux reservation there, and it might dispel your assumptions to learn this:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...lion-year.html

There's little need for any member of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Tribe to work. Each adult in the 460-person American Indian nation receives more than $1million a year - for doing nothing.Aug 12, 2012

Inside the richest native American tribe in the U.S. where casino profits pay $1m a year to EVERY member

Payouts coming out of the money the Shakopee Mdewakanton Tribe makes through its highly profitable casinos

About 460 people live within the tribe

Between Mystic Lake and the Little Six Casino - tribal revenues are thought to be nearly $1.4billion

Everyone who lives on a reservation today was forced from their homeland. I think you have a myopic view of history.

That is like saying everyone alive today walked out of Africa. It's silly.

Except it's not the same thing at all because we're talking about something concrete. You said you have an understanding of reservations. So if your family was forcibly relocated there from your actual home, and you still live there, how else do you explain your presence?

My presence anywhere began the day I was born.

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."

"Satchel" Paige

The Sockalexis story has been discredited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clevel...ce_of_the_name

Presumably it's been explained to you why the Chief Wahoo imagery was considered racist and offensive - exaggerated caricature features (giant eyes, giant nose, etc) and red skin that are drawn directly from insulting/offensive stereotypes of Native Americans.

The fact you "don't see color/race" doesn't change really change anything. The design of the mascot and imagery was based on negative racial stereotypes.

Now, given that the mascot was based on offensive/negative stereotypes and, yes, that is undeniable, do you now understand why it needed to be removed?

/

Scotch tape
..next on the list

Using a tartan?

I knew I shouldn’t read this thread, yet I did.

Dang you, Rich! We gonna have to talk next time I see you!

You mean the guy who played less than half the team's games in 1897, while hitting 45 points below the team leader wasn't the team's best player? Maybe it was the 28 games of .236 hitting the next two years that sealed the deal.

Actually, I think it does matter that I don't see color/race. Isn't that the whole damn point of all of this? So if you choose to see it, that's on you.

So we have the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, with an aggressively-stanced caricature of an Irish Leprechaun. I'm assuming you're spearheading the movement to change that, too, on behalf of the Irish? What about the Boston Celtics? New England Patriots?

Nobody here put the Native Americans on reservations. However, everyone is asked their race/ethnicity on all sorts of documents. Everyone who applied to college was judged based on their race/ethnicity (hence their diversity quotas). I don't see a single person ever protesting outside of the reservations on behalf of the Native Americans. It's basically a bunch of non-Native Americans telling others non-Native Americans that they're racists for rooting for a team with a cartoon as a logo.

It sounds like you sleep just fine at night because a sports team logo no longer exists to offend you. Congrats. Don't tell me how to think. Let me sleep well at night, too, knowing I have identified the real problem, and changing a sports logo/team name doesn't even touch the solution.

opportunity knocks
 

I believe that the braves, indians and redskins have an opportunity to succeed either way they go. I am sure there is a native american nation that would consider adopting one of these sports teams. If a sovereign native american nation adopts the team it would legitimize the sports organization and provide a benefit to both. Changing the narrative from that of caricature to one of respect could uplift the native american community and propel the sports team in a new respectful direction. Also creating new marketing opportunities. Open a dialogue with the leadership of native american community see what they have say about using their likeness and telling their story. There are so many benefits to opening a dialogue.

If keeping affiliation with native american branding is not the way forward then rebranding the team is an amazing opportunity. You get to create a whole new culture for your fans and create a deep well of marketing opportunities. With the social media allowing almost immediate feedback the fan base would practically rebrand themselves.

With adversity comes an opportunity for tremendous growth. Being positive and open minded to the inevitability of change leads to success.

Aaron

Personally I think if these franchises wanted to honor Native Americans or their heritage they could make a pretty good show of good faith by hiring a Native American for a senior position with the franchise.

Instead of trying to pander to an entire ethnic group, why not just hire people that are THE BEST for the job, period?? Isn't that the whole point of a modern cosmopolitan world, to ignore race and colour??

Trying to placate others by offering employment based SOLELY on skin colour is ALWAYS a losing proposition.
And giving someone a job does NOTHING to "honour" their culture or "heritage"... absolutely nothing.

This should be beyond common sense in 2020.

Isn't "Yankee" a derogatory term? Well, let's change it! Oh, and wait, what about the Vikings? That's a little bit racist too, no? Let's change that one as well! Like seriously, when are these people going to stop? Next we'll see animal rights groups going after teams.

I guess it would depend on the position, no? A team honoring a particular culture or tradition might benefit from having someone around who is a member of it.

+1

Shhhhh! You'll be labeled as insensitive!

You’ve been called a racist because you are in a unique place of privilege where you have the luxury to ignore race and racism and apparently you choose to do so. You’ve been called a racist because you have an opportunity to assist in helping those who have been oppressed and otherized but you would rather ignore this opportunity. The concept and repercussions of race exist in this country even if you have the luxury of not acknowledging it. Many others don’t have that luxury. Whether you acknowledge it or not you have benefited from the racist legacy of this country. For example, do you know about redlining in Cleveland? (Don’t answer that)

I’m from Ohio and it also took me a long time to see these names for what they are, but that’s no excuse. Wahoo isn’t even arguable anymore though.

I wish I could say this nicer but your post comes off as really ignorant. Maybe try reading some history and sociology books by people of color. It’s 2020 and racism is finally getting (more) called out. I could be wrong but at least I’d be wrong on the side of compassion and empathy. I wish you and your family the best.

Written on Nez Perce land,

David Lu$ti$

One of our enlightened members answered that in post #27.

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Poster deleted their comments. I will respect their edits and not quote them.

You didn't directly address it - do you not see why the Chief Wahoo logo was changed?

The difference between Redskins and Celtics/Patriots/Fighting Irish and the others is, of course, one is a racial slur and the rest aren't.

I'm not crazy about "Fighting Irish" but Irish people don't seem to care and it's not a racial slur. My main beef is that it's a school with a FRENCH name but called IRISH. WTF. [/snark].

If only things actually worked that way. I've both seen an experienced non-white candidates (I'm half-non-white but can pass either way) passed over who were qualified and maybe over-qualified for open positions.

Granted I'm in an industry that is both 99.9% run by white folks and steeped in good-ol-boy nepotism but them's the facts.

People can either play victim and be miserable or they can deal with it and be optimistic.

I have lost opportunities because of my age (they figure I'm close to retirement - they're better off investing in training in someone younger who will stay and progress up the ranks.) I don't complain.

When I was a senior in college I was easily the best catcher on our team. But our coach had a lot of younger players and was trying to build up the program, so I spent most of the season on the bench. The freshman who played instead was a big, slow kid, but with some raw potential. Again, I didn't complain.

We have laws against discrimination. When you see it, fight it. But for the most part, like a poster above says, why not just enjoy life and work around the occasional bigoted, biased, jerk. And if you start sniffling out of self-pity, imagine what it's like for people born with severe illness, or dwarfism, or mental retardation.

I agree that being born a middle class white guy has afforded me some privileges. I didn’t ask for them nor will I apologize for them as well. As a country, we have to be very careful how we address privilege as a subject. It’s only natural that if you tell someone, anyone that they have the deck stacked against them, they are victims from birth and nothing can change that fact, then what motivation is there to look at the world from any other viewpoint? Instead of bemoaning my privilege and groveling, I’m more interested in how can we actually improve the human condition of people in places like Baltimore, Chicago, etc.

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If blacks, for example, had the same access to opportunity, why are there only 4 total running Fortune 500 companies? What are there AmLaw firms with 0 black partners? How even how many blacks have had the chance to manage an MLB team or coach a NFL team, let alone own a franchise? For supposedly having equal access, they sure don't seem to be well represented high up on the food chain. Just because they can drink from the same drinking fountains and don't fear for their lives when they exercise their right to vote, don't fool yourself into thinking that they're on equal ground with whites.

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Personally, the thing I’m most offended about is someone named “G1911” posting here without disclosing the name behind their garbage opinions. My name is Ryan Christoff. What’s yours? Then, maybe we can all discuss the issue, non-anonymously. Like grown-ups.

If packs doesn't have to then G1911 certainly doesn't have to.

Wow, some cowardly crap on this board. And you’re okay with this? They should all have to put their names behind their words. Anyone can send me a private message and I’ll give you my phone number to discuss anything further. I can’t promise you’ll appreciate my words in your ear, but I promise you’ll hear them. Man, how soft have people become???

You are the coward for calling out one person because you disagree with him but condoning someone else doing the same exact thing because you agree with him.

I thought I said “they should all have to put their names behind their words” but I’ll send you a message with my phone number and we can discuss who is a coward, Cliff Bowman.