President Donald Trump recently urged Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team to return to its Indians name. Cleveland changed its supposedly inappropriate and dated Indians baseball name four years ago to Guardians, honoring bridge street signs of that new name in the city.
As much as I hate to admit it, in this name-rechange instance, I think the president, unwittingly, made the right call.
Most historians agree a Penobscot Indian, Louis Sockalexis, was the first Native American to play major league baseball. This would have been as an outfielder during the late 1890s with the Cleveland Spiders.
While Sockalexis’ Cleveland career with the Spiders was short, when he died of alcoholism in 1913 at age 42, his death in large part led the team to change its name to Indians to honor him, his heritage and his accomplishments.
I should add that Cleveland is in Cuyahoga County, named in 1807 after the Cuyahoga River, which means “crooked river” in the Iroquoian language. This river and the surrounding region in northern Ohio have a rich history with various Native American tribes and nations, including the Erie, Kickapoo, Shawnee, Seneca, Wyandot and Miami.
So would it be inappropriate for a city with this social and baseball history to keep its sports team name Indians? And is calling something Indian in the 21st Century unethical and racist?
I understand that on the largest Ojibwe Indian reservation in Minnesota, more children wear Cleveland Indians baseball caps than they do all other MLB caps combined.
So how do we ethically determine which terms and names are appropriate?
William A. Babcock
Durango
