Time to pull the plug on the chop — and ‘Braves’
The haunting chants are impossible to ignore now that the World Series has shifted to Atlanta.
While a good chunk of the world moves forward, the Braves are choosing to cling stubbornly to the past, hoping any opposition to their nickname and the tomahawk chop will somehow just fade away, or at least get drowned out by 40,000 fans waving their arms and droning in unison like extras in a 1950s John Wayne flick.
Major League Baseball, which took the bold stance of yanking the All-Star Game out of Atlanta over the state’s new voting restrictions, suddenly looks about as progressive as Kenesaw Mountain Landis with its tortured defense of the team.
Yet this much is clear: There is no way this issue ever turns in a favorable direction for the Braves.
Not now. Not next season. Not a hundred years from now.
“They need to recognize that this problem is not going to go away,” said James O’Rourke, a professor of management at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
Simply put, the Braves are on the wrong side of history, not unlike those who continue to defend the Confederate flag and statues as nothing more than peaceful symbols of Southern heritage.
No matter how many people attempt to stand in the way, as they always do when society makes a jarring but inevitable lurch forward, there’s no turning back now.
Much of the sports world has heeded this message, if somewhat begrudgingly.
After insisting for years that it would not alter a nickname that is literally deemed offensive in the dictionary, Washington’s NFL team finally dropped its racist moniker. The Cleveland Indians followed suit, changing their name to the Guardians heading into 2022.
Even the Braves, not known for being as socially progressive as Atlanta’s other sports franchises, seemed to be moving in the right direction during the 2019 playoffs when a rival pitcher, who happened to be a member of the Cherokee Nation, called the tomahawk chant insulting.
The team did not distribute red foam tomahawks before the decisive Game 5 of their NL Division Series “out of respect for the concerns” expressed by St. Louis reliever Ryan Helsley.
But when some Braves fans grumbled about the move, and even went so far as to claim it put a hex on the team that resulted in the Cardinals scoring 10 first-inning runs and ending Atlanta’s season, the suits in the front office quickly put the brakes on any tentative steps to drown out the chant.
It wasn’t really an issue during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, when games were played in empty stadiums.
But with fans returning this season, the Braves just couldn’t bring themselves to break up with their beloved chop. They brought back the ritualistic music that sparks the cheer. They brought back video displays of swinging tomahawks throughout Truist Park.
While we’re at it, don’t even bother bringing up the issue of a name change with Braves ownership. The Braves insist it is not offensive or demeaning to Native Americans, largely relying on the support of the North Carolina-based Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
It surely doesn’t hurt that Harrah’s Cherokee casino is a major sponsor of the Braves, even though Principal Chief Richard Sneed insisted the two issues are not at all related.
It hurts for a minute whenever you rip off a Band-Aid, but the pain always goes away.
So let’s start ripping. New nickname? How about the Hammers, in honor of the franchise’s greatest player, Hank Aaron.
New logo? A hammer, of course, which would fit nicely in that spot on the jersey currently occupied by the tomahawk.
A new cheer? Anything but the tomahawk chop.