USA TODAY International Edition
Senator proposes Cleveland Buckeyes name
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown wants the Cleveland Indians to adopt the nickname used by the city’s Negro League team from the 1940s.
Brown said during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday that he left a message with the team’s ownership, the Dolan family, on Tuesday to say that the team should change its name to the Cleveland Buckeyes.
Brown is a big fan of the team, and on Wednesday he rattled off its historical accomplishments in helping to desegregate professional baseball, including signing the first black player in the American League when the team added Larry Doby to the roster. He pointed out that the Cleveland Buckeyes won the Negro League World Series in 1945.
“Cleveland has a better civil rights record, frankly, than most other teams in baseball,” he said.
The team already has transitioned its Chief Wahoo logo to be secondary to a block C, and last week it announced that it was considering a name change as well. The team’s statement came after the NFL’s Washington Redskins, under pressure from sponsors, announced that it would reevaluate its team name as well.
“We have had ongoing discussions organizationally on these issues. The recent social 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,” the Indians wrote in a prepared statement.
The Democratic senator said he still believes that Confederate statues should be removed and that he supported the city of Columbus removing a statue of Christopher Columbus from outside City Hall. The state “should probably do the same” with a Columbus statue on the grounds of the Statehouse, he said.
The senator’s daughter, Columbus City Councilwoman Elizabeth Brown, was among the elected officials who pushed for the statue’s removal at City Hall. Columbus State Community College also removed a statue of Columbus.
Monuments to Founding Fathers who were slave holders, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, should “be used to educate,” Brown said.
He said a statue of Harriet Tubman, a black woman who helped lead slaves through the Underground Railroad, should be built alongside those monuments to former slave holders.