Cleveland to shed Indians name soon: report – Ballpark Digest

Cleveland is eventually dropping theIndiansbranding but will continue to use the name until a new moniker and branding have been finalized, according to Team Owner and Chairman Paul Dolan.

The rebranding is not a surprise: in July the team announced it wouldreexamine the use of a racially inappropriate name and brandingduring a time of social justice. The use of the Indians name has been a controversial one for several years now, and when the team announced a reexamination, the assumption in baseball was that new branding would be the inevitable result.

This certainly has been the year of social justice in professional sports, including baseball. Earlier this summer theMinnesota Twinstook down a statue offormer team owner Calvin Griffith at Target Field due to his racist legacy, while theUniversity of CincinnatiremovedMarge Schotts name from the schools ballpark for the same reason. (Our story here.) Prior efforts includedthe renaming ofYawkey Wayback to its original name,Jersey Street,after the Boston Red Sox petitioned to change it as a way to distance the team from former owner Tom Yawkeys racist past.

The Indians had previously struggled with a problematic part of its team branding: Chief Wahoo.It took until 2018 for the team to downplay Chief Wahooon team uniforms, branding and marketing. However, the idea of dropping the logo completely had previously been met with some reluctance from Indianschairman and chief executivePaul Dolan, even asMajor League Baseball commissionerRob Manfredincreased pressure on the team to get rid of Chief Wahoo.

Its been the Cleveland Indians since 1915. Before that the team had been known by a variety of names since launching as an original American League team in 1901: Blues, Broncos, Naps, and our favorite: the Molly McGuires. The Indians name came as a result of a decision by local sportswriters recruited by the team owner: the rationale given at the time in the Cleveland Plain Dealer was that the team name was to honor former Cleveland Spiders player Louis Sockalexis, regarded as the first American Indian to play professional baseball.

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Cleveland to shed Indians name soon: report - Ballpark Digest