Long past time for MLB name changes
Cleveland, you’re on the clock. It’s your turn to make a statement. It’s your time to make a difference. Drop the nickname from your MLB team, and do it before another fan ever sits in your ballpark again.
Come on, you can be better than Washington owner Dan Snyder, who finally agreed Monday to change the nickname of his NFL team.
Snyder refused to even contemplate a name change until FedEx threatened to take the name off the team’s Landover, Maryland, stadium. Corporate sponsors like Pepsi and Nike and Bank of America also joined the cause.
How about making change for what
is right instead of being pressured by money?
Do we really have to wait until Progressive Corp., the auto insurance giant, threatens to remove its stadium naming rights sponsorship, worth about $3.6 million a year, for Cleveland owner Paul Dolan and his family to react?
It took MLB’s clout to force Dolan to rid itself of the racist Chief Wahoo caricature from the uniforms two years ago before hosting an All-Star Game.
“This is the hardest decision we’ve had to make during our entire ownership,” Dolan told The (Cleveland) Plain-Dealer at the time.
Dolan also loudly proclaimed that the franchise’s nickname would stay. He was adamant about it.
Now, he finally is softening his stance, with the team sending out a statement this month to reflect a change might be coming. “We are committed to making a positive impact in our community and embrace our responsibility to advance social justice and equality,” the statement read. “Our organization fully recognizes our team name is among the most visible ways in which we connect with the community. We have had ongoing discussions organizationally on these issues. The recent unrest in our community and our country has only underscored the need for us to keep improving as an organization on issues of social justice.
“With that in mind, we are committed to engaging our community and appropriate stakeholders to determine the best path forward with regard to our team name. While the focus of the baseball world shifts to the excitement of an unprecedented 2020 season, we recognize our unique place in the community and are committed to listening, learning and acting in the manner that can best unite and inspire our city and all those who support our team.”
It’s absurd that it has taken this long.
Didn’t Stanford change its nickname from the Indians to the Cardinal nearly 50 years ago? Dartmouth changed to Big Green in 1974. St. John’s dropped the Redman to the Red Storm and Marquette dropped Warriors for Golden Eagles in 1994.
And here we are, in 2020, still arguing whether these professional team nicknames are offensive?
Why in the world would you offend somebody when you don’t have to offend them?
“I think it’s time to move forward,” Cleveland manager Terry Francona, 61, said on a conference call this month. “It’s a very difficult subject. It’s also delicate. …
“Even at my age, you don’t want to be too old to learn or to realize that, maybe I’ve been ignorant of some things, and to be ashamed of it, and to try to be better.”
Call them the Cleveland Rocks. The Cleveland Spiders. No matter what they decide, it’s time for change.
It’s also time for the Atlanta Braves to take a good, hard look at themselves. Their “tomahawk chop” chants are dehumanizing and certainly part of the institutionalized racism in this country.
It took rookie pitcher Ryan Helsley of the Cardinals, a member of the Cherokee Nation, to voice his complaint last year to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Atlanta to temporarily stop the nonsense.
“I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general,” Helsley said. “Just depicts them in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual. …
“I feel like there are a lot of other things they could use as mascots. Using our heritage as a mascot, it isn’t the best thing. There have been schools who in the past 20, 30 years have changed their mascots. I don’t see why professional teams are so far behind on that.”
Atlanta listened at the time and canceled the distribution of 40,000 foam tomahawks to fans before Game 5 of their NL Division playoff series. They also ordered the stadium to stop playing the “tomahawk chop” chant when Helsey was pitching.
Yet they want us to believe that there’s nothing at all racist or offensive about their nickname or the “tomahawk chop” chant. The name is going to stay. The tomahawk will again be on their uniforms this year. But they will discuss the use of the chant during games, according to a letter sent to their season ticket holders, after discussions with tribal leaders and several Native American groups.
“Changing the name of the Braves is not under consideration or deemed necessary,” the letter said in part. “We have great respect and reverence for our name, and the Native American communities that have held meaningful relationships with us do as well. We will always be the Atlanta Braves.
“As it relates to the fan experience, including the chop, it is one of the many issues that we are working through with the advisory group. The chop was popularized by our fans when Deion Sanders joined our team (in 1991) and it continues to inspire our players on the field. With that in mind, we are continuing to listen to the Native American community, as well as our fans, players, and alumni to ensure we are making an informed decision on this part of our fan experience.”
So the nickname will stay in Atlanta. Likely, so will the tomahawks and chants. Just like Snyder until Monday, the folks in Atlanta aren’t budging, either.
That is, of course, until they get corporate pressure from Truist, the bank that has the naming rights to their ballpark, along with Coca-Cola and their other major sponsorships.
Money always talks the loudest, doesn’t it?