Reaction to Indians' new nickname 'guarded' at best
- col-aaron-dorksen
- July 23, 2021
- 1976
I can’t wrap my mind around Guardians as the new name for our Cleveland baseball team. It's boring and just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
And, I’m not just some casual fan spouting off about the day’s top story.
As a third-generation, diehard Indians fan I’ve been going to Tribe games and Cleveland for as long as I can remember.
It really hurts to see Cleveland stripped of its Indians nickname by team owner Paul Dolan and this bizarre moniker added in its place.
One of our favorite family stories is that my grandma made a Lou Boudreau Indians jersey for my dad to wear as a boy in the late 1940s. Stores didn’t sell jerseys like that back then. Some people came up to here at a game and asked if she was Mrs. Boudreau.
I grew up hearing stories of Boudreau, Bob Feller, Larry Doby, Satchel Paige and many more legends. It’s been thrilling to cheer for modern stars like Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel and current ace Shane Bieber.
My journalism career has enabled me to get to know many of the great people who have worked for the Indians. The media relations internship I did in the Indians’ front office in 1994 — the first year for Jacobs Field — was the coolest job I’ve ever had.
In the seasons that followed, I reported on countless Indians games and covered spring training a couple times.
During all those years, I don’t remember anyone talking about the Guardian statues on the Hope Memorial Bridge. The statues barely register a blip on my Cleveland memories radar screen, except looking up a few times and thinking they looked cool.
"Guards” obviously serve an important purpose, but they’re about as boring as it gets when it comes to mascots.
I’ve seen youth travel baseball teams with better logos than the Guardians “G” that was unveiled today.
Getting rid of the racist Chief Wahoo logo was the right move, but I’ve felt all along they should have kept the Indians moniker. Our Indian history and culture in Ohio is really special.
As a kid I read about Native Americans in history books, marveled at their way of life and was saddened to learn some of the ways they were mistreated. I studied Indian history more in depth as a history minor in college. At no time did I think “Indians” was a racist nickname.
Instead of taking away the Indians nickname, why not work with Native American groups to teach more about the native heritage?
Where will we stop with achieving political correctness? Look hard enough and someone can find a problem with just about anything.
What now for other pro teams like the Braves, Chiefs or Blackhawks, or colleges like the Seminoles or Fighting Irish? Locally, I was surprised to learn recently The College of Wooster is looking at ways to distance itself from its Fighting Scots logo. Really?
Many native Americans actually like to see teams have nicknames with connections to their history.
The Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Council issued a resolution supporting FSU’s use of the Seminole name: “FSU considers it a great privilege to represent a group of people whose courage and spirit we admire and respect,” the school says online. “Through the years, the administration has made it clear the university will not engage in any activity that does not have the approval of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.”
Will a small, but vocal minority of people get their way to change the name of Ohio’s state capitol Columbus because of criticism of Christopher Columbus? Will we then change many of the school and street names, too?
One day we might have to settle for the Care Bears playing the Unicorns on Happy Street.
In the meantime, I’ll try to get used to the Guardians and know it could have been worse. Spiders was reportedly also strongly considered and they give me the heebie jeebies.
Aaron Dorksen can be emailed at aarondorksen24@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AaronDorksen.