Team to become Guardians after 2021 season
At 63 years old, Paul Dolan has only ever known the baseball club that his family owns by one name, the Cleveland Indians.
He knows it will take a long time for many fans to grow accustomed to experiencing the team as the Cleveland Guardians after this year, but he believes all interested parties will move forward with a sense of civic pride and unity.
“We’re not asking anybody to give up their memories or the history of the franchise that will always be there,” Dolan said Friday after the club officially revealed its new name at a press conference inside Progressive Field.
“For people my age and older, most our life is going to be living as an Indian and not as a Guardian.”
Dolan said the decision to change the team’s name back in December was clearly the hardest part of the process. After that, club officials weaved their way down a long a difficult road to find the right name and make sure it was available for use.
“It took a lot of time and a lot of extraordinary effort. Add to that it was all done during a global pandemic, but I don’t know one particular part was harder than any other.”
But now that the team has announced Guardians as its new name, that part of the process is finally over.
“I’m glad that we’ve entered the phase now where the name is out there and we can begin to promote what will be our future,” Dolan said. “That’s actually exciting.”
Dolan said the club did not envision a midseason announcement, but once they settled on a name and the path was clear, they moved forward quickly.
“Everything didn’t align until just recently,” Dolan said. “Getting final clearances on the name from people who had interests in the name, for different reasons.”
Dolan said he hasn’t gauged reaction from anybody outside his family yet because he had not revealed the name prior to Friday. But he emphasized the sense of pride that the organization has in doing what they view is the right thing. That is what drove the name change in the first place.
“I know some people disagree, but if anything I’ve gotten more and more comfortable that we’re headed in the right direction,” Dolan said. “Actually, the selection of the name solidifies that feeling because of the values that the name represents. We feel very, very good about that part.”
Manager Terry Francona spoke briefly at the announcement, reiterating his close, personal ties to baseball in Cleveland, having spent the first six years of his life here while his father enjoyed the best years of his career playing for the Indians.
“I don’t know if anybody probably could have more of a tie to the Cleveland baseball organization than myself,” Francona said.
As manager, Francona said he’s been privy from time to time as to the inner workings of how the name change played out, and he said the work Dolan, President of Business Operations Brian Barren and their crew have done is “tremendous.”
“We’re trying to be the best Cleveland organization we can be and be united for everybody and represent the city of Cleveland like it deserves,” Francona said. “It’s not about us. It’s about other people, and you have to step outside of your own skin and think about other people that may have different color skin and what they’re thinking. We’re trying to be extremely respectful and I’m really proud of our organization.”
Barren said there is definitely a sense of relief that the club was able to reveal the name on its own terms.
“There’s also — after a deep breath — excitement for a lot of work to be done in front of us,” Barren said. “Certainly, if you look around our ballpark and you walk around, we’ve got a lot of stuff in our ballpark that’s going to need to be converted over to the new brand name.”