Cleveland Decides To Change Its 105-Year-Old Racist Nickname, Possibly As Soon As 2022

Cleveland's baseball team has finally made the decision to change its racist nickname, according to a report in the New York Times. The nickname has been in use since 1915.

The long-overdue news comes after decades of protest led by Native American groups. Cleveland's decision may have been made somewhat easier after Washington's NFL team stopped using a racist slur as a nickname. Also, this past summer, much of the US was forced to take a much clearer look at the country's systemic racism.

Cleveland may officially announce its plans as soon as this week. One of the three anonymous persons who spoke with the Times said Cleveland plans to keep the current name for the 2021 season but may adopt a new name for 2022. While the team reduced its use of "Chief Wahoo" before the 2019 season, it continued selling merchandise featuring the racist caricature.

Interestingly, hours after the Times' report was uploaded, there was still no mention of the news on MLB's main webpage and nothing on the Cleveland team's main page. These screenshots were taken at on 2:20 AM, Monday (ET).

The traditional story, which the team still promotes, of the franchise honoring former player (and member of the Penobscot Nation) Louis Sockalexis, is a myth.

As Tyler Carey wrote this past summer, Cleveland had been known for years as the Naps (after star infielder Napoleon Lajoie). However, the 40-year-old Lajoie batted only .258 in 1914 and was traded to the Philadelphia A's.

The Cleveland club felt it could not continue to name itself after a now-opposing player, so it decided to go back to the drawing board. Owner Charles Somers once again solicited the help of the city's sportswriters, hoping to settle on a brand once and for all.

Unlike the process that selected "Naps," the new moniker was to still be solicited from fan suggestions, but this time it would be the team and the writers who made the final decision. The publications received hundreds of ideas, ranging from staying with the old nickname to things like "Foresters," "Tornadoes," "Commodores," "Rangers," "Sixers," and "Harmonics." Yet, as [author Terry] Pluto writes, none of the papers mentioned "Indians" as a published suggestion.

This is where things get tricky, and where the signs of the times likely come into play. The 1914 season had been an historic one for baseball, as the Boston Braves had stormed back from last place and 12.5 games down to swipe the National League pennant before stunning the Philadelphia A's in the World Series. The "Miracle Braves" captured the hearts of fans in New England and around the country . . .

Historians seem to agree Somers and the writers saw this as a dream brand opportunity . . . Obviously, an exact ripoff of the Braves would've been impossible, so the group went with what they saw at the next-best thing . . .

As Pluto recounts, The Plain Dealer and The Sporting News correctly mentioned that the new moniker was one carried by the Spiders for a time, while The Cleveland News even directly mentioned the Braves in hoping Cleveland's hapless team [which had finished last in 1914] could "show just as much reversal of form" as the unlikely champs. Yet when the announcement of the change was made, none of the papers mentioned Sockalexis until The Plain Dealer did so in a small January 1915 write up, after the fact.

Also, Trump takes a quick break from his seditious activities:

There is no hill too inconsequential for Trump to be racist on pic.twitter.com/eK7tmM2S3z

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 14, 2020