The Miracles Never Stop This Year
The Tribe is In the Series!
And now, this astounding news, just in! Can it be possibly true? After all these years misidentifying this image, it now appears that it is actually a drawing of Scottie Pippen!
I mean, am I right, or what?
Comments
As far as I'm concerned, the only major sports franchise which has any business putting "Indians" in its name is the IPL's Mumbai Indians.
How well do you like cricket?
http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2b1aea0a
The Cleveland team, not named the Indians at that time, of course, was the first major league baseball team to employ a Native American player, in the 1890's. Despite his appearances in other cities being greeted with a great deal of racial hostility, Cleveland was wildly enthusiastic about him, so much so that, years after he retired, the team was renamed the Indians, at least partly motivated by a desire to honor his presence as the first Native American in professional baseball. This was not the only time that the Indians took a stand against racism. Almost exactly fifty years later, and a year after the Brooklyn Dodgers broke the color line in baseball, by putting Jackie Robinson, the first African American major league player, on the field, the Indians broke the ban on black players in the American league with the hiring of Larry Doby, the second African American in baseball.
The Indians have nothing to be ashamed of, either in their choice of a team name, nor in their role in race relations in baseball.
As for Chief Wahoo, the image you see today is a version of one first introduced by Bill Veeck in the late 1940's. It has become a symbol of Cleveland civic pride, and in fact is beloved far beyond Cleveland, being one of the most widely sold images in professional sports- and not to white racists. Here in Los Angeles, hats with Chief Wahoo on them have, for many years, been very popular among Latinos. You really need to learn a little more about things before talking about them in such negative terms.
As for cricket, I lived on Lensfield Road when I was a research student at Cambridge, and the Cambridge cricket ground was just a few minutes walk down the street from my flat. I saw games being played there many times. Doesn't make me an expert by any means, but I do know a thing or two.
"The Cleveland team, not named the Indians at that time, of course, was the first major league baseball team to employ a Native American player, in the 1890's."
*What about James Madison Toy, a Lakota Sioux who played for the Cleveland Blues in 1887 and the Brooklyn Gladiators in 1890?
*Furthermore, Sockalexis never played for today's Cleveland franchise. He was a member of the National League's Cleveland Spiders, which folded after the 1899 season when the NL contracted to eight teams. (The 1899 Spiders are remembered for going 20-134. The Robison brothers, who owned the Cleveland franchise, bought the St. Louis team before the 1899 season. They moved the best Spiders to St. Louis, and sent them the worst players on their new team in return.]
"Despite his appearances in other cities being greeted with a great deal of racial hostility, Cleveland was wildly enthusiastic about him, so much so that, years after he retired, the team was renamed the Indians, at least partly motivated by a desire to honor his presence as the first Native American in professional baseball."
*The Guardian indicates you're wrong. The name was chosen before the 1915 season by Cleveland sportswriters because the 1914 World Series winners were . . . the Boston Braves. "None of the reports from the four daily newspapers in Cleveland at that time mentioned Sockalexis when the change was made in January 1915."
*I recommend you download this KEITH OLBERMANN VIDEO on the history of the team's name.
"As for Chief Wahoo, the image you see today is a version of one first introduced by Bill Veeck in the late 1940's. It has become a symbol of Cleveland civic pride, and in fact is beloved far beyond Cleveland,"
*And other institutions, such as Stanford, have dropped their Indian mascots and imagery.
*Also, you can't control how others adapt the imagery for their own purposes. There have been examples of fans of opposing teams who put Indian heads on sticks as a way to express their hatred of the Chicago NHL and Washington NFL franchises.
"You really need to learn a little more about things before talking about them in such negative terms."
*I think I know more about 19th-century baseball than you do.
That's no miracle.
Cleveland winning the World Series wouldn't be a miracle, either. The club's had a big history of winning baseball over the past century.
- GO CUBS!
Anahid, I am familiar with all of the various accounts of the origin of the Cleveland team's name, from ones that claim Sockalexis was the sole reason for it, to ones that claim that he had nothing to do with it. In the end, I have settled on a middle of the road account which assumes that he was a partial motivation for the name, but that there were other factors involved too. As for whether or not you know more about 19th century baseball than I do, I really don't give a damn. This is a political blog, not a sports one. I was just taking a little pleasure in my team having done well, which you did what you could to ruin. Now as for Hans, whose comment I am not publishing: comparing the naming of the Cleveland team with the examples of blatant anti-Semitism that you describe is offensive and racist in itself. The idea of a German promoting this kind of thinking should be enough to exclude them from decent society. I can't accomplish that with you, but I certainly can exclude you from my blog, which I am now doing.
We need all the defenders of Israel we can get. You are doing us a disservice by dismissing our country's friends as anti-Semites.
Why do you hate my fellow supporters of Israel so much?
Leicester City won the Premier League, and
The Cubs have won the Series!
The Cubs have won the Series!
Post a picture of Chicago's logo, for
THE CUBS HAVE WON THE SERIES!