For Baseball’s Honorifics and Team Names, an Overdue Reckoning
Last month, in the wake of nationwide anti-racism protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, the Quaker Oats company announced that it would retire the name and logo of its Aunt Jemima brand of pancake mixes and other breakfast foods, acknowledging that its origins are “based upon a racial stereotype.” Other corporations quickly followed suit as the branding for products such as Uncle Ben’s rice, Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, Cream of Wheat cereal, Dixie Beer, and Eskimo Pie ice cream bars came under closer scrutiny. This remarkable, long overdue reckoning on branding and symbolism, on who we honor and how, had already spilled over into the sporting arena with NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flag from its events and the Minnesota Twins’ removal of a Target Field statue of former owner Calvin Griffith over racist remarks he made in 1978, but last week it advanced on several fronts. The NFL’s Washington Redskins and MLB’s Cleveland Indians (hereafter referred to by the team’s respective city names) both announced that they would consider name changes, while the Baseball Writers Association of America has begun an internal discussion to change the names of two awards on which its members vote.
On the NFL front, in the latest turn of a decades-old battle, Washington announced that the team “will undergo a thorough review of the team’s name.” That came after FedEx, which owns the naming rights to the team’s stadium, requested it do so. Within hours, Cleveland followed suit with a statement saying that the club is “committed to engaging our community and appropriate stakeholders to determine the best path forward with regards to the team name.”
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) July 4, 2020
The statement arrived nearly a year and a half after the franchise announced a phaseout of its Chief Wahoo logo, a grotesque and demeaning caricature that in various incarnations had been in use since 1948, the same year that Cleveland won its last World Series. The logo made its last lap around the league in 2018, and did not appear on any of the team’s 2019 uniforms.
None of this has happened without outcry or opposition, and there are no guarantees that either Washington or Cleveland will follow through. Washington owner Daniel Snyder has previously treated the prospect of a name change with disdain, saying in 2013, “We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. NEVER — you can use caps.” The statement announcing the team’s review of the matter uses the word “Redskins” no less than 11 times (six outside the masthead logo), as if pressing on a sore spot. As for Cleveland, owner Paul Dolan not only said he was “adamant about keeping the name” in January 2018, when the Wahoo phaseout was announced, but that commissioner Rob Manfred “is similarly supportive of the name.”
We find ourselves in a different moment than we did in 2013 or 2018, however. Per the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Terry Pluto, in the wake of the protests against police brutality, general manager Chris Antonetti was involved in MLB’s somewhat belated response, which included donations to five charities as well as club executives holding up placards that read, “Black Lives Matter. United for Change.” during the first round of this year’s amateur draft on June 10. Dolan, Antonetti, and the rest of organization did some soul-searching with regards to its diversity, and according to Pluto, “heard from some of their people that the name was ‘offensive’ or at least politically out-of-touch with 2020 America.”
The team’s statement bought it some time and took some of the heat off its corporate sponsors. The club will play out the 2020 season (if indeed one can be played) under its current moniker while considering their next move. The name has been around for just over a century — Joe Posnanski can give you the history lesson while preventing this from turning into a novella — but it’s a relic from another era. The word “Indians” to describe the Indigenous people of North America is based on a misnomer (Christopher Columbus thought he had reached India when in fact he had only reached the Bahamas), and those people themselves have been subject to all kinds of brutality, discrimination, and marginalization since European colonists arrived. Even when well-intentioned, the used of Native American names and imagery by sports teams that have no connection to those people is exploitative. The name change is overdue; even before the recent protests, there would have been significant pushback if a league had allowed a new entrant to call itself the Indians — or for that matter, the Braves.
Alas, Atlanta is not yet considering a name change. In a statement to media outlets, the team said, “The Atlanta Braves honor, support and value the Native American community. That will never change.” Per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, discussions about the team’s use of the “Tomahawk Chop” cheer are underway; during last year’s Division Series, Cardinals pitcher and Cherokee Nation member Ryan Helsley called the chop “a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general.” The team did not distribute their traditional red foam tomahawks to fans before Game 5 of the series, during which they were eliminated. The discussion of the chop’s propriety is a start, at least, and if Washington and Cleveland follow through with their name changes, Atlanta will be under more pressure to follow suit.
As for the Cleveland team’s new name, my knee-jerk instinct is to call it the Spiders, after the short-lived 19th-century franchise that finished second in the National League three times during its 1889-99 run but in the last of those years was stripped for parts by syndicate owners, who sent future Hall of Famers Cy Young, Bobby Wallace, and Jesse Burkett and just about every other player of significance to the St. Louis Perfectos. What had been an 81-68 team plummeted to 20-134, a standard of futility that has never been approached by a major league team. Others have suggested the Cleveland Rocks or Rockers, tapping into the city’s musical history. CBS Sports’ Dayn Perry offered an assortment of ideas, including the Buckeyes (after a Negro Leagues team) and the Burning River (after the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire).
Elsewhere within baseball, ahead of Cleveland’s announcement last week, two potential moves connected to the BBWAA (of which this scribe is a member) took hold, both of which appear to have some momentum. One pertains to the annual Most Valuable Player awards, which bear the name of former commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the other to the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, a lifetime achievement award “for meritorious contributions to baseball writing” which is presented during Hall of Fame induction weekends, and which bears the name of the former publisher of The Sporting News.
On June 30, the Associated Press’ Ben Walker quoted multiple former MVPs — namely Barry Larkin and Terry Pendleton, who are Black, and Mike Schmidt, who is white — about the use of Landis’ name on the plaques. As baseball’s first commissioner, from 1920 to 1944, Landis succeeded in cleaning up the game and restoring public confidence in the wake of the Black Sox scandal, during which the 1919 World Series was fixed in favor of the Reds. While the AL and NL had previously issued MVP awards (some of which made past winners ineligible), it was Landis who in 1931 formalized the system of having BBWAA members vote on the award. During the 1944 World Series, just weeks before the commissioner died at the age of 78, the writers voted to add his name to the plaque.
For as impactful as Landis was, baseball remained segregated during his tenure even as the chorus to integrate grew. Because of that association, the use of his name, even if it’s rarely included in the coverage of the award, clearly makes some winners uncomfortable:
- “I was always aware of his name and what that meant to slowing the color line in Major League Baseball, of the racial injustice and inequality that Black players had to go through,” said Larkin, the 1995 NL MVP and now a member of the Hall of Fame. Larkin additionally cited conversations about the use of Landis’ name with two-time MVP and Hall of Famer Joe Morgan: “[H]e said it never sat well with him, having that name on there.”
- “If you’re looking to expose individuals in baseball’s history who promoted racism by continuing to close baseball’s doors to men of color, Kenesaw Landis would be a candidate,” said Schmidt, a three-time winner and Hall of Famer. He added, “Looking back to baseball in the early 1900s, this was the norm. It doesn’t make it right, though. Removing his name from the MVP trophy would expose the injustice of that era. I’d gladly replace the engraving on my trophies.”
- “Statues are coming down, people are looking at monuments and memorials. We need to get to the bottom of things, to do what’s right. Yes, maybe it is time to change the name,” said Pendleton, the 1991 NL MVP.
Walker received input for his article from MLB’s official historian, John Thorn, who said that Landis and his legacy are “always a complicated story” that includes “documented racism.” He added, “Landis is who he is. He was who he was. I absolutely support the movement to remove Confederate monuments, and Landis was pretty damn near Confederate.” Walker did point out that Landis’ father was actually a Union Army surgeon who was wounded in the Civil War at the battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia, an event that inspired the naming of his son, who was born in Ohio in 1866.
Historians still debate the extent to which Landis was responsible for the maintenance of the color line, and whether he harbored racist views. For Thorn, the latter is something of a red herring: “In sum, my view is that it doesn’t matter to me, nor should it matter to anyone, whether Landis harbored racist thoughts or feelings, or uttered a demonstrably racist sentence,” he wrote at his Our Game blog. “What matters is what he did or did not do, in an office in which for a long time he held unfettered sway. Racism is as racism does.” [Emphasis in original]
Landis’ defenders cite his 1942 comments in the wake of Dodgers manager Leo Durocher’s stated desire to sign Black players “if there were no rules against it.” Said Landis in a statement:
Certain managers in organized baseball have been quoted as saying the reason Negroes are not playing in organized baseball is that the commissioner would not permit them to do so. I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to express myself on this important issue. Negroes are not barred from organized baseball by the commissioner and never have been during the 21 years I have served. There is no rule in organized baseball prohibiting their participation and never has been to my knowledge. If Durocher, any other manager, or all of them, want to sign one, or 25 Negro players, it is all right with me. That is the business of the managers and the club owners. The business of the commissioner is to interpret the rules of baseball and enforce them.
In his blog entry, Thorn noted that Dodgers president Larry MacPhail responded to Landis’ statement by saying, “Judge Landis was not speaking for baseball when he said there is no barrier: there has been an unwritten law tantamount to an agreement between major league clubs on the subject of avoiding the racial issue.” Additionally, Thorn offered documentation of what he called Landis’ “art of deception” — maintaining the “Gentleman’s Agreement” that was nowhere codified but that kept baseball segregated since 1883 — in the minutes of a December 1943 meeting during which Paul Robeson, a Black actor and athlete who had played baseball against the likes of Frankie Frisch while at Rutgers University, and coached Lou Gehrig at Columbia University, spoke to the commissioner and club executives to advocate for the signing of Black ballplayers. In the aftermath of Robeson’s presentation, Landis, as he had done before, claimed that no rule was in place, and all but dared teams to cross him. From the minutes:
MR. RICKEY [Brooklyn]: Mr. Commissioner, are we to understand that the report from this meeting, in response to the delegation that came in here today, is to be simply that the matter was not considered?
COMM. LANDIS: No, no. The announcement will have to be that it was considered — and my recollection now is that it was considered, and you gentlemen all remember that it was considered; you each participated in the consideration of it — and that no action was taken on it; that the matter is a matter for each club to determine in getting together its baseball team; that no other solution than that, in view of the nature of our operations, is possible.
Do I state what you have in mind?
MR. BREADON [St. Louis NL]: Yes, sir.
MR. RICKEY: I thought that we should all have in mind the same thing.
COMM. LANDIS: Yes. Is there anything more, Mr. O’Connor [Landis’s assistant]?
MR. O’CONNOR: No.
Mr. Rickey is of course Branch Rickey, the only owner at the meeting who had anything to say on the matter of race, and the one who would bring Jackie Robinson to the majors three and a half years later. The two-and-a-half year delay between Landis’ death and Robinson’s arrival has been cited as evidence that the commissioner was not the obstacle to integration, but Rickey had sent his scouts to cover the Negro Leagues as early as 1943, and signed Robinson to his first professional contract on August 28, 1945, believing that he had finally found a player with not only the talent but also the temperament to withstand the pressures of breaking the color line.
Thorn’s whole entry is worth a read, and indeed the topic is ripe for deeper exploration. One needn’t find a smoking gun, however, to conclude that Landis’ inclusion in the Hall of Fame — he was elected by a special vote two weeks after his death — is ample enough recognition for his service to baseball. He’s in no danger of being erased from history, but there’s no need to venerate him further. Jack O’Connell, who has served as the BBWAA’s secretary/treasurer since 1994, told Walker that no past winner had ever voiced a complaint to him about Landis’ name, but those were different times, and such players may have felt that their complaints weren’t worth the trouble. The recent Black Lives Matter protests have emboldened people to speak up about all manner of injustices, and if past MVPs are expressing the discomfort that his name brings them even in association with one of the game’s highest honors, it’s time to move on.
O’Connell told Walker that any BBWAA member could raise an objection to the use of Landis’ name and initiate a discussion within the organization. Under normal circumstances, the matter would be considered and voted upon at the annual Winter Meetings, which this year are slated for Dallas. That wouldn’t be until after the next winner is announced, which isn’t ideal, but with the possibility that the Winter Meetings will be scrubbed (also not ideal), the discussion has been initiated and has gone digital within the members-only section of the organization’s web site. It’s my understanding as a member that the matter will be put to an online vote at the individual chapter level, with the results aggregated. If Landis’ name is removed, a discussion will ensue over whether to name the awards after another figure, but they may simply become the BBWAA AL and NL MVP awards.
A parallel process appears likely to happen with regards to the Spink Award, that after USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote about it on July 1:
We are tearing down statues and monuments for what they represent.
We are changing state flags for what they symbolize.
Finally, we are demanding change in this country.
It’s time for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to step up, too.
It’s time for the BBWAA to remove the name — J.G. Taylor Spink — associated with the greatest honor given annually to a baseball writer.
Spink, whose uncle Alfred founded The Sporting News in 1886, took over as publisher from his father Charles in 1914 and continued in that capacity until his death in 1962, at which point the BBWAA established an award in his honor and made him the first recipient. The so-called “Bible of Baseball” carried great influence within the industry, and so Spink’s defense of the status quo and opposition to integration played a significant role in setting the cause back.
In his column, Nightengale cited author Daryl Russell Grigsby’s book Celebrating Ourselves: African-Americans and the Promise of Baseball:
“Spink defended segregated baseball with his silence. If need be, he did so in words. In August 1942 he wrote an editorial [titled “No Good From Raising the Race Issue”] saying that baseball did not have a color line, but that segregation was in the best interests of both blacks and whites because the mixing of races would create riots in the stands. … Spink’s defense of segregation was largely not based on fact but on fear and prejudice.”
Spink was openly critical of Rickey and Indians owner Bill Veeck, writing about the latter’s acquisition of 42-year-old Satchel Paige in 1948, “The Sporting News will make no change to its original editorial, except to express its admiration for any pitcher—white or colored—who at Paige’s age can gain credit for five victories over a period of six weeks in any league, major or minor. But it cannot express any admiration for the present-day standards of major league ball that make such a showing possible.” (h/t to Forbes‘ Dan Schlossberg)
Even in 1961, near the end of his life and after the point where every major league team had finally integrated, Spink was derisive of calls for teams to press for integrated housing in Florida during spring training, a matter that spurred Black stars such as Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson to speak out. Wrote Spink, “Baseball has done its part… we don’t believe that baseball is under any obligation to be a crusader or martyr in this issue. That it seems is the role some people think baseball should play in the racial issue in Florida.”
Such was the stature of Spink within the industry that his obstructionist stance on integration did not impede the effort to honor him, which began just months after Robinson became the first Black player elected to the Hall of Fame and four years before Ted Williams used his induction speech to stump for the elections of Paige and Josh Gibson. Spink’s track record wasn’t spotlighted on the occasions when Black writers received the award (Wendell Smith, posthumously in 1993; Sam Lacy in ’97, Larry Whiteside, posthumously in 2008; and Claire Smith in ’17), though the last of those winners — additionally the first female recipient of the award — told Nightengale, “If Mississippi can change the flag, and Confederate statues can be removed from state capitals, we can do this.”
Other recent winners may not have been aware of Spink stance, either. Peter Gammons, the 2004 honoree, told Nightengale, “I think they should change the name of it. I was never aware of that, but now knowing that, I feel very strongly about it.”
In a statement to FanGraphs, 2019 Spink winner Jayson Stark weighed in:
“As the 2019 winner of the Spink award, I’m profoundly aware of the powerful meaning of this honor. It’s an award that should signify the highest standards in our business. So as an organization, I think it’s time for the Baseball Writers to make a statement that the racist views of J.G. Taylor Spink do not, and should not, represent what we stand for. Not in the way we conduct ourselves in our profession — and certainly not in the highest award we bestow on our members.”
Within the BBWAA, suggestions to rename the award after a more meritorious writer have been received, but as with the MVP, it seems possible if not likely that if Spink’s name is stripped, the award could become something along the lines of “The BBWAA Lifetime Achievement Award” rather than bearing someone else’s name. The Hall itself appears open to a change; vice president of communications and education Jon Shestakofsky told Nightengale, “This is an issue on the baseball’s writer side. We’ll surely have a conversation on it moving forward if they are discussing a change.”
Even if these efforts do come to fruition, the changes won’t be earth-shaking, and for whatever plaudits these organizations may receive, we should also lament that these moves took so long, stalled by some combination of inertia, ignorance, and insensitivity. Retiring these outdated symbols isn’t on par with the toppling of Confederate statues. It doesn’t address the underlying systemic injustices that still prevail against Native Americans, Blacks, and other minorities, nor will it increase minority representation in dugouts and front offices. But even if this isn’t the heaviest lifting, these wrongs are worth righting. Change is better late than never.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
The Jackie Robinson MVP Award seems logical but the Rookie of the Year award already bears his name. There’s also a Babe Ruth Award. The Barry Bonds MVP Award after the man who won seven of them would be fitting but the baseball writers are still having trouble dealing with the legacy of the so-called Steroid Era.
Stan Musial, Mike Schmidt, Mickey Mantle, and Roy Campanella are good candidates for the MVP award.
Frank Robinson – first guy to win it in both leagues – would be my choice.
This is an A+ idea.
I learned something today, and it’s a great idea. And he died recently too, so it feels like a good time to name something after him.
Is there anyone else who has done it?
Nope, he’s the first and so far only.
BTW, there have been 6 pitchers who have won the Cy Young in both leagues which is a bit odd since it hasn’t been around for as long.
Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay and Max Scherzer
I also thought about Ted Williams for his advocacy for Negro league players or Yogi Berra who used to have the most MVPs before Bonds, but 7 is a lot. Bonds was clearly better than all those guys so someone would always be asking “Why not Bonds?”
Frank Robison is an all time great who won it in both leagues and he was also the first black manager. He would be the best choice. I wish I had thought of it myself.
This is a blindingly obvious choice. YES YES YES
Robbie is a great choice. First African-American manager, and if you add up all his games as player and manager, he was involved in more on-the-field games than just about anyone. His 1966 season, in which he was MVP during the season as well as the WS, is one of the great all-time seasons. Plus all the service to baseball after his managing was done. Hard to think of anyone more deserving, in fact, if the MVP award wren’t available, he would beg to have some other award named after him.
Not sure why manormachine’s post is getting downvotes.
Honestly it’s clear we should change the name and it’s now a fun exercise to come up with ideas!
Guessing it’s the reference to Barry Bonds, which is kind of a non-starter.
When I first saw your comment manormachine’s post was at -1. When I looked later, it was at +3. Now it’s back to -1. So goes the post voting on Fangraphs….
No, it is not clear we should change the name. If Landis was some sort of gross racist, yeah, but the evidence presented above indicates that he was pretty good on racial issues in the context of his time.
Bonds was a great player but his steroid use marks him as an ambiguous object of admiration at best, and that is not including off-field issues. Robinson might be the best choice IF it were necessary to change.
0 for 3, Johnnie T. Try again.
???
Bonds’ bigger issue, in my view, is his history of misogyny and domestic abuse.
What was his misogyny?
I mean listing misogyny here is just redundant – beating your wife is a misogynistic act.
Eh, Bonds has many other issues beyond the steroid use (which is itself probably a big enough issue to disqualify him from this conversation). But yeah seems like we should be able to find someone else to name it after!
If we’re not allowed to honor great Americans like Thomas Jefferson or George Washington because they weren’t perfect, I can’t imagine honoring Barry Bonds by naming an award after him. Even setting aside the steroid use and his assault on the legitimacy of the game, he was a notorious domestic abuser whose commendation would be an affront to women in general and the #MeToo movement in particular.
I am pretty confident we will still be honoring Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, warts and all.
Have you not checked the news in the past month?
I have. There’s a massive pandemic going on alongside massive protests about police brutality, both of which are already among the largest in America’s history. Also, there’s no baseball. What else do you have time to pay attention to?
Ah, so you’re the special sort who only knows about people because there are statues. You’re gonna have a tough time.
Honestly MLB made a mistake a few years ago, when they named the World Series MVP trophy after Willie Mays – the problem being, other than one amazing catch, Mays didn’t play very well in the 4 World Series he was in. They should’ve named the award after Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, or Reggie Jackson – all three of whom won the award twice. Then, they could name the regular season MVP award after Mays.
Maybe just call it the MVP Award without any names attached to it. It’s simple and it avoids any debates over who is and is not acceptable. Let the winners speak for themselves, no someone else.
It goes back to Communism. Without something as simple as a name, it DOES mean less. You tear down history, you tear down meaning. MVP award sounds hollow doesn’t it? Doesn’t the Kobe Bryant Award sound better than the MVP award?
except no one, no one, has ever referred to it as the Kennisaw Mountain Landis Award in regular conversation – we always refer to it as the MVP, even on the night it is announced.
The Cy Young is the anomaly in actually being referred to regularly by the person it’s named after. We don’t even regularly do that with the ROY (Jackie Robinson Award), we just call it the ROY.
Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner!
I’m 40 years old, and I’ve watched baseball consistently for as long as I have memories. Yet I’ve never heard of Landis, or known that his name was on the MVP award. It’s simply “The MVP” to just about anybody. I don’t see the need for a name on it.
I am actually against renaming things. It’s a common trait in Communist countries to rename and replace in the guise of social justice, feminism or racism. History is 100 for 100 on this. Fangraphs is no different. Their writing staff constantly interjects Liberal ideas into articles such as Orange man bad, White Bad.
I will simply state I am a person of color and identity what fangraph is advocating for as Marxism.
The demand for racism exceeds the supply, thus we have hoaxes like Jussie Smollett, Bubba Watson and Jonathon Lopez to name a few.
Two of those three incidents were indeed hoaxes (but not Bubba Watson, who had nothing to do with any of what surrounded him in response to the rope in the garage). Those two hoaxes are indeed despicable, especially Mr. Lopez, a public official.
But what in the holy hell does “the demand for racism exceeds the supply” mean? Sadly, there is still far too much supply, even after accounting for the two hoaxes you accurately mention. And as far as the demand goes… well, yes, you cited two instances where racism was manufactured to provoke outrage, which in no way compares in any meaningful way to the supply of actual real live racism that exists in our country or our world.
This comment is just baffling, baffling, baffling. Like, I’m allowing it to hurt my brain in ways that I shouldn’t.
Dude go back to watching OANN, your BS is not welcome here.
Vash, try again.
Lol
“An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind”, and if we take anything associated with wrongdoing/sins/etc and remove it from eligibility of honors…we are left with nothing to honor. As a certain someone once said, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. While there is no denying the imperfections of peoples of the past, if as little as holding an unacceptable viewpoint at some time is all that it takes then literally every single person calling for removal of honors ironically renders him or herself ineligible for honors too – because character assassination by way of the retroactive application of today’s morality on people from different contexts is one of the rare absolute immoralities out there, and as unquestionable injustice.
Further ironically, many figures of the past are frowned upon today because then looked down on others as “inferior”, “savage”, “uncivilized”, etc…by the standard of their own morality. We have all the tools we need to understand how misguided it was for them to have such utter confidence in their moral strength, superiority, even perfection, that they felt it was fair to take peoples of other places and judge them on that understanding. Somehow, despite being armed with this understanding, today’s society is proving completely and utterly no better.
It’s one thing to retire the active use of obsolete symbols or words. Chief Wahoo (which I agree was insensitive at best and for some demeaning, but “grotesque” is a pretty ridiculous label given that the term is a literal redundancy by definition for any caricature) went away as he should have, and “Indian” was never even an accurate term for how it was used and thus it is sensible to move on from that. But as is too often the case with progress, we’re going too far, too fast, and mistakes in the form of injustices are being committed. If one wishes to judge others, be it things or people past or present, one should first operate with the care to not become guilty of that which one seeks to combat.
Wait, are you arguing for against renaming Cleveland and Atlanta’s team? Most of this post is arguing something so abstract it is barely relevant. When you get down to the actual examples you realize that none of the abstract stuff you talked about applies.
Ultimately, the names are offensive, and so we have to deal with that reality, not the one we think would have occurred based on alternate timelines.
You’re falling into a false equivalency. There is a big difference between recognizing people for their impact and contributions (like including them in the HOF), and holding them up as an exemplar or standard (as is implied when an award is named after them). While I am sympathetic to the need to contextualize our understanding of historical figures, doing so doesn’t erase their mistakes, and continuing to elevate them in our present reaffirms their legacies (very much the bad along with the good). It’s true that Landis and Spick had opinions that were considered “acceptably bad” by many during their time as opposed to “unacceptably bad” now, but that doesn’t mean they still weren’t bad. Furthermore, there are millions of people you can look to during the exact same era that actively saw and opposed such views for what they were: racist, prejudiced, narrow-minded, dangerous, and wrong.
Without being a baseball historian, I think that renaming the MVP award after Branch Rickey could be really meaningful to honor the person who broke the seal on true, fair, fully elite MLB competition. Every MVP before breaking the color barrier has an asterisk in that they didn’t win it while playing against a full slate of the true best players. Rickey and Robinson changed that and we all have them to thank for showing us that the racist fearmongering of people like Spick was founded in hate, not in truth.
It’s kinda bullshit to name the award after the white guy who *finally* let a black guy play on his team instead of that black guy, or some other black guy like Campenella, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, etc.
Like, let’s praise the white guy who accepted that black guys are equally competent!!!!! White people who FINALLY accepted that segregation is bad are not the most morally wonderful humans ever. They deserve praise, but honoring them honors them clearing the smallest bar ever.
Let’s recognize people like Clemente and Doby and Paige first.
I absolutely agree, and am kind of stunned that people have been downvoting this comment.
Also if you want to have Branch Rickey’s name on some award, why wouldn’t it be the Executive of the Year?
Honestly I think if MLB wanted to honor its extensive history, they could name the divisions after players. Or set up different league MVP names like the AL MVP award is the Ted Williams, the NL MVP is the Willie Mays and so on.
I have no commitment to the Rickey name idea by any means. It was just something that came to me as I was typing out my other thoughts. I do want to address a couple of your comments though.
Belittling Rickey’s legacy in an effort to elevate the legacies of great black players is a bad look. I agree with you that accepting that segregation was bad is a very low bar, I very much disagree with you that fighting to overcome systemic racism in baseball (or any institution for that matter) is easy or “the smallest bar ever.” Yes, Rickey was white, he would necessarily have to be white to be in a position to change things in baseball at the time (that was the whole problem). That doesn’t change the fact that he was a person who saw something that was wrong and worked to change it despite powerful forces (including a commissioner and media, according to this article) that opposed that change. Again, there might well be context I’m not aware of that complicates the picture on Rickey, but cheapening efforts to overcome entrenched racism is unfair. It is hard and it takes courage.
As for your honorific suggestions, for an honorific to work, it has to have some sort of connection to the thing it’s being attached to. Suggesting that the MVP awards be named after amazing black players just because they are black is not progressive, it’s tokenism. Robinson and Clemente were both MVPs, but they already have other awards named after them that are more appropriately aligned with their enduring legacies (ROY and community/humanitarian impact). Campanella is interesting, as a 3-time MVP. He and Berra became 3-time MVPs the same year, which might make for a fun NL/AL pair, although neither of them was the first 3-time MVP in either league and there have been more since. I like the idea mentioned in a comment above of naming it after Frank Robinson as the first person to win the MVP award in each league. He was a phenomenal player with a great legacy that accomplished something uniquely relevant to the award in question.
Same argument can be made against modern players, fangraphs, and yourself. Fangraphs openly looks down upon Asian players as being lesser than American players.
How far do you want to shif the goal post?
Fangraphs, quite rightly, thinks that the Asian leagues are of an lesser quality, overall, than the US Major League. I don’t think that is a controversial opinion – it is saying nothing about individuals.
No one at Fangraphs has ever said, to my knowledge (if you can find an article or a tweet that proves me wrong, go for it), that Asian players do not belong in Major League Baseball.
Fangraphs is in the business of comparing the quality of baseball players – there is no ethnic bias in WAR – just how good you are at producing and preventing runs. And saying deGrom is better than Tanaka is in no way looking down at Asians.
elaborate sigh
this post is basically just an extremely long and vague rehash of the “tolerance is intolerant of intolerant people” trope
tolerance means accepting people for the things they can’t change – their race, gender, etc – who they are. it doesn’t mean accepting everyone’s beliefs and actions.
racists of the past believed that minorities were savage, inferior, etc. this was incorrect. anti-racists of the present believe that racists of the past were racist. this is correct
Wait you think someone can’t change their gender?
ok so yeah. not being trans i’m just talking but as i understand it, trans people say that they’ve always been the gender that they are and their bodies just didn’t match. so it’s not really “changing your gender” and in fact you can’t change it because if you could they wouldn’t have to go through all the crap they go through. u know what i mean
ok which team is downvoting me here, i need to know whether i should give a shit
I’ll just say that probably its worth looking into the difference between gender and biological sex, which aren’t the same and usually the 2nd is the one that is ..much more difficult to change (ie transition), whereas gender is how someone identifies (and therefore changeable).
Fwiw, I don’t think your statement was intended to be transphobic, just that you weren’t familiar with how those terms are distinguished.
no, sure. i’m just saying, like, gender identity could in the abstract change much more easily than biological sex, being less physical, but in practice how often does that happen? i’m sure someone somewhere has felt like their gender identity actually changed at some point, just like someone has probably had their sexual orientation change on them. life is a rich tapestry. but just because you can’t physically see something doesn’t mean you can just snap your fingers and change it, either.
i follow a lot of trans people on twitter and i’ve seen many, for example, transwomen say that they were always women and it was just their bodies that were wrong, it took them a while to figure out what was really going on, etc. that’s what i was saying there, and as i say this isn’t my own experience so i’m very open to critique but it seems like you’re not really straight up disagreeing?
the real problem with my original post is probably getting hung up on “unchangeability” as a benchmark for tolerance, which is probably too narrow to begin with, as i already conceded below, with “religion” being an extremely uncontroversial counterexample: no one denies that you can choose to change your religion, yet it’s also a classic category of tolerance. so. point taken on that. i’m thinking out loud here.
didn’t really mean to get into the gender stuff we’ll be here all day
Nah you just stepped on the minefield that a common bad-faith argument from anti-trans folks on the internet is ‘gender can’t change, there are only two of them and everyone only has one’, and so people thought you were tipping your hat in that direction.
I would suggest to you that the benchmark for tolerance is not, as you mention, changeability but compatibility:
We are tolerant of things that people do not necessarily control (ethnic background) and personal choices that only affect themselves (their gender identity, their religion, etc).
We must be less tolerant of things that attempt to enforce themselves on others. Its rarely phrased this way, but in general, our concept of freedom is largely bounded at ‘when you start to encroach on the freedoms of others’. Behave as you will, as long as you allow others the same freedom (whether that be forcing your religion on them or, heck, theft/murder/etc can also be viewed thus).
We must be less tolerant of those things specifically because they encroach on the freedom of others, and so allowing it is giving unequal, greater freedom to one than another, and that’s something we’ve done institutionally for centuries by providing lesser opportunities to people of color (even following their official ‘freedom’, in the form of jim crow, poll taxes, redlining and so many other injustices).
right on
Sorry, I commented without following the thread. Seems like you all have this well in hand. Ill butt out. Cheers
This is, I believe, a reasonable attempt to attempt to understand the trans community and as someone not involved it DOES come across as in GOOD faith. Its supper insensitive, but not vindictive or unworthy of a reply, which I am not qualified to give.
I agree that tolerance doesn’t mean accepting one’s actions, but tolerance is definitely also about other people’s beliefs.
Also, anti-racists believe that racists are inferior, etc. so the comparison doesn’t hold there, bub.
ok sure, tolerance in a broader sense includes many, perhaps most beliefs and actions. in the sense of religious tolerance and so on. that’s fair. live and let live, basically.
my point was just that drawing the line at tolerating beliefs and actions that harm others isn’t hypocritical, as OP was suggesting.
i’m not sure that anti-racists think racists are “inferior”? like. do racists suck because they’re trying to enforce an unjust social order? sure. does that equate in any meaningful way to racists considering a different race inferior? i’m not sure about that one chief. your “etc” is doing a lot of work there, since the one other word used was “savage” – do anti-racists think racists are “savage”? like, sure, we think they’re being assholes by dehumanizing whole groups of people. you disagree?
“racists think another group of people is bad, yet you also think another group of people (racists) is bad. hmm? checkmate”
ok
Racists are absolutely inferior. This should be without question, and really if any further explanation is needed you are yourself inferior. Society has moved on and is better for it.
This is the tell right here: “But as is too often the case with progress, we’re going too far, too fast, and mistakes in the form of injustices are being committed.”
The statement above isn’t a fact; it’s an opinion, and a wrong one. It doesn’t give cover to the real world applications of not progressing, like some may think it does.
Mistakes in the form of injustices have been committed for a long time now. That’s what this conversation is about and is why things are being reevaluated. It’s wild to compare to the continuations of these injustices – still going on today – to the fears of progress happening too swiftly.
If things are Wrong they should be fixed. No one should be told they have to wait to get equality or to be treated with dignity. I may be fooling myself in thinking that not getting this isn’t a conscientious choice being made, but I really don’t know how to explain it to someone that doesn’t get it.
If it’s an opinion, then it can’t be wrong. Only facts can be proven true or false. You can call it wrong or call it an opinion, but you can’t have it both ways.
Anyway, he/she is saying that’s it’s going too far in committing injustices by “fixing” things that were never wrong or broken in the first place. Landis should be celebrated for cleaning up the game and formalizing the MVP award irregardless and independently of his mistake of holding up the color line, and taking that honor away from him is an injustice.
Opinions can be wrong, on moral or other grounds. And the idea that an opinion can’t be wrong or right is – wait for it – an opinion itself. So the opinion that an opinion can’t be right, can’t be right; because it’s an opinion and opinions can’t be…
What you describe is clearly *not* what redsoxu571 actually said – in the sentence before the one I quote they talk about things that were wrong and should go away, and in the two paragraphs before it they talk about how we need to take in the context of the times in making judgments about people in the past. It’s a very obvious slight-of-hand attempt to go from those ideas to saying that nothing should be done now because things “were never wrong or broken in the first place”. Again, it’s wild to compare to the continuations of injustices – still going on today – to the fears of progress happening too swiftly.
As far as specific people, if you want to lump the things Jay discusses in his article as “things that were never wrong or broken in the first place” to try and make some point, then go ahead; but that’s just, like, your opinion, man. And it’s a Wrong one.
We can acknowledge and educate about the roles of those who should not be celebrated as part of teaching history without also honoring them. Including Hitler’s name and image at a place like Auschwitz doesn’t make it a memorial to him.
Hitler never did anything worth honoring. Landis and Spink did do so irregardless of their racial views.
Hitler built the Autobahn. Should there be a section of it named for him, then?
Well said! People need to learn to honor people for the good things they did separately from any unconnected mistakes they may have made.
If accomplishments are worthy of praise, demerits are worthy of scorn… don’t be a hypocrite.
I’m a fan of the Spiders as a name. That CBS article also suggested the Fellers and the Blue Sox, which would be nice.
If John Rocker hadn’t pitched for Cleveland, I’d be in favor of the Rockers…
How about just the Rocks? Cleveland rocks! Cleveland rocks!
How about the Cleveland Harmony? A nod to singing and Bone Thugs!
Lol !
Cleveland Eerie!!!
Having both Rockers and Rockies in the same league would be too much, in my opinion. The CFL had the Roughriders and the Rough Riders as team names until the Ottawa franchise folded and picked a different name on their resurrection, and that was weird enough.
Technically, they wouldn’t be in the same “league,” but I agree with your intended meaning.
The Edmonton Eskimos are moving towards changing their team name; most Canadians strongly support them changing it to the Edmonton Rough Riders.
Crows. A strong name, yet ambiguous enough to please every small mind.
There was a blackbird near where I grew up and that thing was mean as hell. If you’re looking for a bird that is super aggressive that’s a good choice.
Spiders give too many people the creeps, and it is in remembrance of arguably the worst team of all time that was ruined by one of the worst corruption scandals in major league history. Pass.
I like Buckeyes. Appropriate for the state and a reference to the Negro League team is nice as well.
Buckeyes overlaps with Ohio State sports whose lawyers would probably not take kindly to the idea.
EDIT: Never mind.
Cleveland LeBrons
Cleveland Grover Alexanders
Love it
Okay, so I know this is not in keeping with modern MLB naming patterns but I like the sound of “Cleveland Baseball Club” – for me, it brings to mind old-time mercantile or factory ball teams. (which is just what the kids want nowadays – evocations of moustaches and sweat and dust) Either that, or rename them the “Perfectos” to get back at the Robisons
Technically, that’s already the official name (or close to it) of the team. They’re called “team nicknames” for a reason after all.
A third “Sox” name (not to mention that the Reds and Cardinals were also originally named for their sock colors) would be ridiculous.
Cleveland Forest Citys FTW !
Cleveland Eerie!!!
Definitely time to make some changes. Team names are more difficult to change so I understand if the process takes a couple of years. Still, they need to be changed. The question is not necessarily of offense (i.e. Redskins seems more offensive than Braves) it’s of whether we should be naming sports teams after ethnic groups at all. (The answer is no).
Names of trophies should be changed immediately. Take an all-time great without any major issues and who doesn’t already have an award and put their name on the MVP award. I.E. The Stan Musial MVP trophy.
For Cleveland I like Spiders or Buckeyes as fitting. They should come up with a few and have locals vote. For Atlanta,, not sure.
I largely agree with you – but not sure about the hard and fast “don’t name teams after ethnic groups” rule. Should the Boston Celtics change their name? The Minnesota Vikings? It’s certainly a tricky issue, but it seems to me some connection to the local population (i.e. historically a lot of Scandinavians in Minnesota and Irish in the Boston area) whose heritage the name celebrates should be okay, but even this I am unsure about. Which category does “Kansas City Chiefs” fall into? I think the larger issue is appropriating the culture of a group of people with no real, specific connection to the local area and using it for a nickname almost like one would an animal (“Cleveland Indians” seems more in the vein of “Detroit Tigers” than “Boston Celtics”). I think ultimately it’s important to remember that these issues are incredibly hard to sort out, and although there is some low-hanging fruit to address, hard and fast rules generally won’t fix things with necessary nuance.
Some are slurs, some are not slurs. That’s a pretty simple line (Indians and Redskins are both in the former category).
In the latter, IMO, the primary factor should be how the local (and national, but more local) communities of that group feel. Some college mascots are sanctioned and endorsed by the tribes they name (Seminoles and Fighting Sioux, for instance).
Similarly in iconagraphy: Braves may be fine, but the old logo isn’t, and the chop is definitely out. But the Braves have a lot of support in the NA community in the southeast, and there’s a way for them to be the Braves that’s entirely acceptable without having to change their name, with the blessings of that community.
I mostly agree, except he word “Indians” has never been treated as a slur by most people. It’s just an innocent naming mistake that’s fallen out of common usage in favor of better accuracy like other mistaken yet harmless archaic names like the Pennsylvania Dutch, the Eskimos, Mt. McKinley, and tidal waves.
Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with naming things after cultural groups if it’s meant to honor them or their positive traits. Besides the examples already listed, there are also the San Diego Padres and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. There’s also the Philadelphia Phillies, kind of.
Not sure if you noticed but Eskimo is also something folks are trying to remove from use, and not merely fallen from favor or whatever.
This. So much this. Its just fundamentally weird to name a sports franchise after a group of actual people. Especially if you have zero connection to those people. I mean, you can pick literally anything your imagination can come up with and you decide “hey, what about those people over there?”
I don’t see what the big fuss is about. If a team wanted to name themselves the Cavemen I would take it as a compliment.
The guy with a C on his jersey is formally known as Captain Caveman, obviously?
We are renaming the indians… leading suggestions are
1. The Cleveland Eerie.
2. The Cleveland prism.
3. The Cleveland Landers. (Clevelanders)
4. The Cleveland hope.
5. The cleveland endeavour.
6. The Cleveland rocks.
I am heavily in favor of the Eerie…I really want to play with the air of mystery and anxiety and foggy cloudy intimidation in the marketing. Ghost spooky feel. I also just really like silly puns.
“Cleveland Landers” – oof that’s terrible. (I get that they’re going for “Clevelanders” but it just doesn’t come out that way and instead sounds like a 52-year-old stenographer from Willowbrook.)
Hopefully things like “the hope” get a pass too…it’s just ethereal nothingness. Now the Eerie I can get behind. Or the Spiders. Or the Rocks. Those are quality names.
Yeah, at least the Los Angeles Angels switch languages within their redundant name.
Los Angeles Ohtanis. Just a matter of time
Cleveland Ann Landerses
Well played, I laughed at this
Cool with me, thanks for the feedback. Those are actually my three favs!
The strangest part of this post is the inconsistent capitalization. Why do the Eerie and Landers get capital letters while the other ideas don’t? Was e e cummings from Cleveland?
I am just a lazy typist and didn’t think anyone would be so pedantic. Should have known better.
Cleveland Cavaliers
So you want your team to be mockingly called “The Mistakes by the Lake”?
I am very okay with the Cleveland Mistakes, both for that reason and as an apology for the Indians.
The op and ensuing comments are funny and are getting too many downvotes.
I can fw the Cleveland Mistakes.
Let’s also ban everyone for life that shows up at Cleveland games in redface and headdresses and end the tomahawk chop in Atlanta. That shit is beyond embarrassing.
At least they aren’t singing “What Makes the Red Man Red?” from Disney’s Peter Pan during the middle of the 8th inning.
To all those complaining about no mugs or facemasks…Dave does not strike me the sort to litigate if you just have them made and sell them with the profits going to fangraphs. Step up or shut up
Lol posting on wrong article? Fair point though
Agree. Yes, wrong article. Apologies to the community.
I don’t see how you can change it to Rocks/Rockers when the Rockies already exist. Very glad the conversation has gained so much momentum though. The Chop in particular is utterly cursed and should be the first thing to go. For the racism but also for the just immeasurable obnoxiousness of the same irritating melody being repeated dozens of times per game. Makes Atlanta games literally unwatchable.
The CFL had teams named the Rough Riders and Roughriders for years.
To be fair, it was stupid then, too.
I say that as both a Canadian and resident of the surviving Roughrider team.
I always pretended they were named for the song by the Specials, which I think is about…well if sex was a Christmas present, someone forgot to wrap this one.
the Roger Angell Award. the finest baseball writer ever. and a wonderful human being.
I’ll re-propose something I brought up in a chat earlier this week regarding Cleveland’s team name: They should borrow a concept from both their own history (as the Cleveland Naps) and their neighbors in the NFL (Cleveland Browns, named after their first head coach, Paul Brown), and name themselves after an active player (perhaps voted on by teammates) each year! We’d get a year of the Cleveland Franciscos! And then maybe the Cleveland Biebers! Keep the big red “C” as the primary logo each year, and they’d get to market a different secondary logo every few years! I know there are probably logistical hurdles to this that I’m not considering/willfully ignoring but I don’t think I can be convinced that this wouldn’t be the coolest team naming system in any professional sports league.
Offering him naming rights as part of his contract would be interesting and very weird. “I’m Francisco Lindor, and I play for the Cleveland Lindors.”
cross-branding with delicious chocolate
At this point, I half expect teams just auction off the name like they do with the stadium rights. The “Cleveland Progressive Insurance” has a nice ring to it?
Hopefully, Mel Hall was not the best player on the team any year….
Named after legendary owner, the Cleveland Phelps?
India is in Asia. That alone should be enough.
Maybe Cleveland can finally get out from under “the curse of the wahoo”
#LibGraphs continuing their aggressive alignment with postmodernism, utilizing pseudointellectual and pseudomoralistic arguments, that, allegedly, are solely rooted in compassion for the dispossessed and downtrodden, rather than disdain for the rich and successful. For the FanGraphs postmodernist, this rich and successful group is unfairly comprised of white, heterosexual men, as these men achieved their statuses solely as dumb-luck beneficiaries of the oppressive patriarchy and/or as tyrants.
These ideas on race and class are not all-too-different from the ideas that have launched communist revolutions, which, inevitably and instantaneously, rack up innocent corpses. From a nonmorbid intellectual perspective, the FanGraphs postmodernist position is a bit reductionist. Surely prejudicial individuals exist, and surely corrupt, power-hungry tyrants do as well. Always have and they are bad. But there’s so.much.more to humanity’s history, as well as these present times.
I support the Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, etc. in their maintaining their Native American-based team name as a metaphorical tip-of-the-cap to groups who have a high number of positive qualities, because if this was not the perception, then the organizations would not have adopted those teams names. A wonderful use of cultural appropriation, which I would define as, fundamentally, the exchange of practices and ideas between cultures. It’s great that African-Americans culturally appropriated basketball from Naismith & KU, and great that Eminem culturally appropriated hip-hop from the black music scene. Cultural appropriation beats the hell out of cultures at war.
Let the downvotes commence! 🙂
You know, you’re right. This FanGraphs post is absolutely going to incite a violent communist revolution.
You support these teams for maintaining their names due to honorable origins, but those ethnic groups have been and are continuing to speak out that it doesn’t make them feel honored but instead stereotyped and insulted. Your argument actually supports the change of the name if the intent is truly to honor them.
So when Scandinavians speak out against the use of the name Vikings, every team with that name should change it?
I think a thing to consider is that most team mascots that are named after groups of people are named after -historical groups-. Vikings. Spartans. Gladiators. etc.
I would suggest that people who used Native American-themed mascots (like Chiefs or Braves) ALSO were going for that historical angle, but the problem is that these are still existing, contemporary groups who are being portrayed and caricatured.
I mean, there are still people who live in Sparta, but the ‘spartan’ mascot is pretty clearly depicting a historical group (and doing so in a fundamentally positive way)
There might be some folks of scandanavian descent who still consider themselves of Viking ancestry, but I don’t really suspect you’ll find them sailing around in ships with horned helmets on (unless they’re doing reenactments), whereas many traditional native american garbs and ceremonies are still used by those tribes who, again, still exist right here in our country. So when you are depicting them you have to do so with a bit more care than when you are depicting a purely historical figure, because you can (inadvertantly or intentionally) propogate harmful stereotypes about them in the process.
Um yes, if a large group of people are offended by your name (all of Scandinavia) then yes you have made a major boo boo and should fix it. This is not hard.
[looking at half of the words in this post] you keep on using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means
Over/Under 4.5 of his own farts smelled while writing this line: “From a nonmorbid intellectual perspective, the FanGraphs postmodernist position is a bit reductionist.”
Stop commenting you stupid stupid person
Support them all you want. You’ll be on the wrong side of history. Let me guess, privileged white male?
Pot meet kettle. Jay has no cause to defend himself against this ridiculous accusation. When did you stop beating your wife Brent?
Jay, you made this guy’s bow tie spin
You should have posted under Dunning Kruger-Mellencamp.
For everyone down-voting this, it’s clearly satire. It’s mocking all the different “high-minded” arguments that show up here on FanGraphs whenever there’s something even remotely related to social justice, and then blending them all into one sauce of nonsense. And if you’ve been here long enough, you know that this is [chef’s kiss] perfect.
i dunno man. i hope so. if that’s the deal it’s EXTREMELY well done. extremely
# LibGraphs continues its positive connections with the arguments of POSTMODERNISM, pragmatism and hypotheses, which are thought to stem from compassion for immutability and oppression, not to the rich. and success. According to Fangrafista, this group of rich and prosperous people is unhealthy and consists of white and heterosexual men, because these people get the status of a quiet, oppressive and / or patriarchal patriarch. .
The ideas of race and class do not differ much from the ideas initiated by the communist revolutions which inevitably and incomprehensibly blew up innocent corpses. From the point of view of unethical wisdom, postmodern fanaticism is a bit of a departure. There are certainly prejudices of individuals, and certainly corruption, hunger and intact independence. They always work, and they are bad. However, there are many. Many in human history, as now.
I also support the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Locks, the Washington Redskins, their home teams, and so on. As a metaphor for the board, the group has a large number of positive qualities, because if it is not a perception, then the organizer will not apply the name of the team. The great use of cultural assimilation that I will identify is the essential exchange of practices and ideas between cultures. The great thing is that African-American culture fits into Naimsmith-KU basketball, and it’s amazing that Eminem has a hip-hop culture adapted to black music. Culture has won the war outside of culture.
Let all the voices begin! 🙂
let all the voices begin. amen
Why is this comment still here? Hateful idiots like this who go about bragging about how hateful they are to own the libs have no place here. Mods should delete this. This isn’t discussion, this is trolling drivel.
there are mods?
I assume the little “flag” button goes somewhere, right?
Who’s downvoting me, racists or people who aren’t racists?
i already tried this, they never answer
fredsbank, I didn’t “downvote” but you asked a question…IMO even the framing of your “question” could evoke down votes from different types of people. The comment you reference was dopey, written in freshman prose trying to impress the professor, tried to provoke a response (troll), with no insightful thought or point. You swallowed hook line and sinker.
The original piece about mascot names was well done, JJ didn’t default to SJW fundamentalism (IMHO he sometimes does) and generally the comments were thoughtful. As noted above, many of these mascot names are archaic, and also offensive to “Native Americans”. The second point is the one that should drive action. A word of caution on use of the word “racist”. As it becomes more and more overused it also becomes a negative word to label, dehumanize, and shut down debate. It has a place, but it’s overuse is similar to calling someone Hitler in the opening of a debate and evoking the original Godwin’s Law.
You deserve every downvote and the fact that you welcome them is very disturbing.
We are renaming the indians… leading suggestions are
1. The Cleveland Eerie.
2. The Cleveland prism.
3. The Cleveland Landers. (Clevelanders)
4. The Cleveland hope.
5. The cleveland endeavour.
6. The Cleveland rocks.
I am heavily in favor of the Eerie…I really want to play with the air of mystery and anxiety and foggy cloudy intimidation in the marketing. Ghost spooky feel. I also just really like silly puns.
In a time when there are mass protest again police brutality I am surprised there is not more scrutiny and pressure on the Texas Rangers.
And don’t get me started on the Reds, F&%@ing pinkos.
They actually did change the name to the Redlegs for a few years during the ’50s.
There was a book that just came out detailing the brutality of the Texas Rangers against Mexican immigrants and enslaved people running away. The name pretty clearly won’t change until this side of their history becomes a more central part of the Rangers mythology.
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/871929844/cult-of-glory-reveals-the-dark-history-of-the-texas-rangers
Thanks to Chuck Norris, that’ll never happen.
This is an interesting, well-researched article, regardless of whether you agree that names should be changed. I think what most of us would agree to is that some things might be open to nuance (or at least should be viewed in historical context) and some things are just wrong. It’s never to late to change wrong.
The team name changes are overdue – Braves, too, and maybe even the Chiefs – at least all the caricature’s of Native Americans need to go yesterday.
As to the awards, why don’t we change Spinks to the Ring Lardner or Shirley Povich or one of those greats – I know Povich to DC’s football and baseball team’s to task for their failure to sign black players.
Landis is more complex and, honestly, there haven’t been many or any strong commissioners after him, so I think that one should stay as is until more research into his role in segregated baseball is better revealed, one way or another.
I wonder if the Braves or Chiefs could save their names from an eventual demise by rebranding completely away from Native American imagery?
While not comparable because there is nothing offensive about it, the Dodgers as a team name in LA has no meaning. It’s just a word. The Braves could just be a name and if you strip away the accompanying imagery, well, what could you say is wrong?
You are basically saying “Can we all just ignore what this word means and where it comes from?”.
Which is not exactly a solution, to put it mildly.
What exactly is wrong with the word and where it comes from without the imagery? Do you hear any fuss about the Syracuse Orange?
Orange is a color you impossible idiot!
If you look in the NCAA ranks there are schools named for tribes with the blessing of the said tribe – I think there are ways for the Chiefs and Braves to adjust their logos and other presentation (like the chop) and maintain their names with the blessings of their local native american communities.
Or they could just change the name. Its that easy. Offensive or not, its just weird to name a team after a group of people.
Hell, the Braves are not even original to Atlanta. They just didnt change the name when they moved from Milwaukee who just didnt change the name when they moved from Boston who were only called the Braves for 10 years of their 70 year existence.
Yeah, like in football, the Cowboys, the Texans, the Vikings, the Patriots, the Saints, the 49ers, the Buccaneers … how weird is that to demean all those groups of people by naming a team after them. Not to mention the Browns, who went out of their way to demean not an entire group of people, but one individual person, Paul Brown — he must have been really livid!
If they ever name a franchise “The Disingenuous Clowns” you can come back and tell us all how you feel.
There is monetary value in maintaining the brand name. I don’t think an internet person thinking it is weird is a good argument to change the name.
Do you think anyone, anywhere is using the argument that they should change the names because “an internet person thinks its weird”?
Are you two trying to one up each other on who can be more obtuse?
That was your argument, buddy. Might be time to put your shirt back on.
No, it wasn’t my argument. It was my own personal opinion. The argument to change the names is very clearly that they are offensive. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 30ish years (or, more likely, you are being deliberately obtuse).
Again you are an impossible idiot. Stop trolling and if you are not this is so sad as to not require any response from George.
Stop trolling and shut up. Your earlier comments are more than sufficient to eliminate you from the public forum on this topic.
You know, I always thought this was the case with Florida State but it turns out that the group FSU has a deal with is the Seminole Tribe. The Seminole NATION is livid, and that group is four times larger. I agree that there is potentially an avenue for financial compensation and recognition that could benefit everyone but since you can always find someone to take your money some of it is just window dressing.
Yeah that’s what Cleveland tried to do, but the imagery helps define the team name. So it doesn’t really work.
A more proactive approach might work. A few years ago, Ole Miss tried to come up with a new mascot to replace their incredibly racist version. Their team name is the Rebels. The winning design (not adopted, for obvious reasons) was Admiral Ackbar.
I don’t think that would work for Cleveland or Atlanta, though. Much too specific.
The problem is the term Indian is itself offensive, whereas Brave and Chief are not.
There was no rehabilitating the Cleveland Indians.
What if they make the mascot a brown-skinned tech support worker?
Okay, I’m kidding there, but seriously, the word “Indian” itself has never been offensive to either nationality, just mistakenly applied to one of them.
Maybe a lion mascot for the Braves as a “Wizard of Oz” reference?
As for the Chiefs, um, an overweight middle-aged man in a business suit?
Why not name Cleveland the Colonizers like in Brockmire?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7_GkaTV8Cg
Wait a minute, from what was included here, it seems that Landis was on the right side of history here. The only argument I heard is that some ex-players who appear to not have done their research were somewhat offended by it.
By all means change the Indians and Redskins (Spiders are so much better anyway!). But applying the standards you seem to be applying to Landis to others, there are very few people white people worthy of any sort of honor before like the mid-20th century. That’s going too far.
From what’s included here Landis seems generally on the wrong side of history (perhaps not excessively for his time) for 20 years and then, seeing that public opinion had shifted, tried to deflect pressure with transparent excuses while still mostly working to maintain the status quo.
The Cleveland name is quite interesting. Its one city that has suffered through many issues with finding a proper name for its team. Forest City’s, Naps, Broncos, Blues, Spiders, Indians, The Tribe, Americans and Nationals … at one or another were the name of a team from the City by the Lake. I find it interesting that nicknames have their heritage in being named after players or the leagues they were in.
My choice is for Blues.
And for a mascot a rock and roll guy with a fender x guitar- baseball bat who rides a custom chopper who enters the stadium with smoke fire and loud rock and roll music.
A very baseball historic name. I would look at a dark blue with Red and White trim stripes and stars. Not too far from the Ohio State flag. Also the Blues reference would be to Fleet Walker’s team the Toledo Blue Sox. And Blues as compared to the Reds of Cincinnati.
Spiders would be second, but their might be copy write issues and a larger naming issue of too many Cleveland sports team with Virginia college name connections. Nothing wrong with that but what about keeping it Cleveland, (Even if even that is a mis-spelling of the guy who the town is named after.) After all you cant go wrong with Cy Young’s old team and a Temple Cup winner.
Do we really need another duplicate name for North American pro sports teams? There’s already a St. Louis Blues NHL team.
The Spiders name just sucks.
We are renaming the indians… leading suggestions are
1. The Cleveland Eerie.
2. The Cleveland prism.
3. The Cleveland Landers. (Clevelanders)
4. The Cleveland hope.
5. The cleveland endeavour.
6. The Cleveland rocks.
I am heavily in favor of the Eerie…I really want to play with the air of mystery and anxiety and foggy cloudy intimidation in the marketing. Ghost spooky feel. I also just really like silly puns.
Just to add this here, YouTuber GCP Gray actually has some experience with what the Native Americans call themselves, which he discusses here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ
If you take his word for it – I do not have the experience or knowledge to judge – Native Americans typically call themselves “Indians.” They generally do not consider it insulting or negative; it is just what they call themselves as a group. There are some who take offense, but apparently it is a small enough minority that it is noteworthy when encountered. (Watch the video. GCP Gray is very good at making things like this interesting.)
This is something to keep in mind. I thought “Indian” would be considered offensive, but apparently not. There may be more complexity to this matter than you might think. In the name of removing offensive team names, all you may be accomplishing is erasing another piece of Native Americans from the American culture without really satisfying anyone. The most simple solution is not always the best.
It’s weird in the context of team name, not in the general use of the term “Indian”. You wouldn’t name a team “The Cleveland White People”
The Cleveland Wypipo would sell soooooo much merchandise.
This message approved by Gym Jordan
What about the Fighting Irish?
This is a good point. That said, as a white person I would not find “Cleveland White People” offensive. I would find it puzzling in the sense that “White People” is a very large group of people who, while sharing many things, are a very disparate collection of ethnicities with diverging histories and traditions. The Irish, French, Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, and Russians, not to mention the Romans, are different enough from each other that grouping them together seems odd, not to mention lacks a guiding theme. Then again, “Indians” is also doing the same thing, so perhaps that is the issue.
That said, if you want to change the name it would behoove you to make sure that the people you are championing actually approve of what you do in their name.
That doesn’t roll off the tongue very well, but I wouldn’t mind the Cleveland Caucasians.
Cleveland Caucazoids
the n-word is pretty predominant in aspects of black culture with black people even using it as a term of endearment towards each other and themselves. needless to say, i don’t think most would be cool with naming a team that. This is a very flawed argument at best.
Its weird how far people want to bend over backwards to justify these names. Just change it. Its just a sports team, its not the declaration of independence. Hell, if you change it you can sell tons of new merch to people.
It seems that rather you are bending over backwards to change it. Should the Nationals change their name? Sounds pretty xenophobic and jingoistic to me.
Every team prior to 1947 took part in a racist, segregated game. Why not change them all? They’re just sports teams, after all.
I know it’s not a serious argument, but the name “Nationals” isn’t xenophobic at all, at least not in the United States where we pride ourselves on being a “melting pot” just so long as you immigrate legally.
You are hopelessly behind the times. I feel bad for you if this is not trolling.
You seem to really love making totally disengenous comparisons. I assume it’s on purpose at this point so I won’t even bother.
Another completly ridiculous analogy on your part. But par for the course I guess.
go ahead. Change them all. Who cares? If a sports team changing its name is that important to your life, you need to examine your priorities.
(Cue the “if it doesn’t matter, why do they change it in the first place?” response)
“If a sports team changing its name is that important to your life, you need to examine your priorities.”
I think you can go bigger than this. Baseball is a game played for entertainment (and money for those involved). Yet here we are on a website caring about it? Why? If you want to not care, or more correctly pretend not to care, then that’s fine. More likely is that you have feelings that aren’t defensible beyond “because I said so,” and thus you’re left with this argument: just do what I want because it doesn’t really matter. How about all teams wear pink uniforms for the rest of time to account for the rampant sexism common in almost all corners of the game. I guess you have to agree with me, right? Otherwise, you, not me, are the one that cares too much.
Anyway, this is what I’d say if it were worth responding to you. But since it isn’t, I won’t say anything.
I can’t begin to explain how much of a dunce you have just proven yourself to be.
That’s a very small minority, just as it’s a very small minority who ever used the word “Indian” as a slur. If you want to viciously mock Native Americans, there are other words you would use.
Tell us more about black people
Just for clarification there is a very very big difference between black people referring to each other as my brother (Nigga) (I strongly apologize to the community and all involved if the use of this spelling is also highly offensive, I am and ignorant ass if this is the case and very worthy of public rebuke) and white people referring to them as N******.
Update: The Us/Them dynamic of the above text was not intended and perhaps indicative of the distance I still have to go. I offer a full apology instead of removing the comment. I will try and do better. If anyone believes the comment should be taken down, I have no objection.
“[some] Native Americans typically call themselves “Indians.”
This is my personal experience as well but didn’t want to extrapolate too much beyond my tiny dataset. I do like it better with my subtle edit above.
I live about an hour from Cleveland and some sports show (idk which one, I just moved here) keeps saying the Walleyes should be the pick. I think it needs to keep the same syllable count at least. Otherwise, Spiders is way better than Walleyes! lol
I like the Pike over the walleyes but either are good by me
I don’t mean this as rhetoric or trolling. I hope I get honest feedback.
Of all the place names that are offensive, “New YORK” should top the list.
New York was named in honor of James, Duke of York (later King James II). As Duke of York, James was Governor of the Royal African Company.
The RAC was responsible for more African people being brutally enslaved and shipped in horrifying conditions to the New World than any other entity. The RAC was the largest entity in the Atlantic Slave Trade between the mid 1600s and the early 1800s. And it was founded under the Duke of York.
New York was specifically named to honor James, Duke of York… a white Supremecist, and a Slave Trader.
I understand it is outside the current sphere of public debate. It is easier to change a nickname than a place name. But making meaningful social change is not easy.
Millions of African Americans live under the flag of a state named in honor of one of the most vile Slave Traders in history.
Wouldn’t public discourse be better off if we at least raised the question whether New York can legitimately keep its name?
My honest feedback is that you’re very clearly trolling.
At some point, I think we have to realize that in most cases what people really want is for institutions to treat them with respect. I don’t hear anyone saying that the name of New York is disrespectful. If calls for those happen, I think you have to deal with it. Sometimes that involves changing names, but sometimes that isn’t practical, and there are other ways to show respect. Many college campuses were built by slaves; there are ways to deal with that legacy other than tearing down all the buildings.
New York is also named after York. A city in England. Almost no one associates the state name with The Governor of the Royal African Company. If there are memorials of James, Duke of York, those can come down and be moved into a museum that can contextualize them.
Charleston, Georgia, Virginia, Rick Perry’s Hunting lodge……
#dumpsterfire
[chanting] Spiders…Spiders…Spiders…Monorail…Monorail…Monorail!
Can’t we celebrate people for the good things they did without connecting them to the mistakes they may have also made? Selig was easily voted into the Hall of Fame despite presiding over the worst labor crisis in the history of the sport and taking way too long to act against PEDs. Should we remove Washington and Jefferson from Mount Rushmore (and rename the National Capital, the northwestern state, and Missouri’s capital city) for honoring slaveholders? Just leave the honors to important yet flawed men (or women) alone!
(Although, symbols and displays directly connected to the Confederacy or its leaders are a different matter and should be removed. Cultural names and symbols should depend on whether they’re truly insulting (like Chief Wahoo) or just a harmless reference (like the Indians or Eskimo pies, whose only real issue is using non-preferred names.)
Have enjoyed much of your writing over the years Jay, but alas you too are PC sell out.
How about the Atlanta Shermans? Maybe they’ll catch fire down the stretch.
I really want the Cleveland Eerie with a macabre theme and fog rolling in off the lake…it works in so many ways.
Why in the world would I get down voted for this its a cool unoffensive suggestion. Comment if you don’t like it but ??????
I think it’s alright, but it probably fits more with hockey than baseball, dry ice and all. Spiders is a terribly lame name and history to my tastes.
The Cleveland Show, of course. Their minor leaguers already know they want to make it there.
This isn’t bad at all… just not very Cleveland associated. That said, sure if people like it this is a decent name.
Curious what people think of the Chicago Blackhawks. Iirc there was a military unit from WW1 using the name with permission from the group, and the team honors that with what I believe is a dignified and simple logo.
I’m all for the name changes since the only social “positive” to keeping names like Indians and Braves seems to be people saying “I like the team names and think they’re cool.”
Buried in there is the sentiment of “I don’t want to admit I’ve been complacent in discrimination and cultural bias this whole time, so I refuse to change course,” whether that’s conscious or unconscious.