Dec 21, 2020 3 min read

Cleveland’s baseball team was christened the Indians in 1915, the same year that “The Birth of a Nation” electrified moviegoers and boxer Jess Willard was celebrated by white Americans for having knocked out Jack Johnson in a bout in Cuba, defeating the first Black heavyweight boxing champion. Legend has it the name was conferred because a Native American named Louis Sockalexis had been a star for the Cleveland Spiders, a National League team that briefly played in the city in the late 1800s.

Back then, the Indians name probably made a lot of sense. After all, a little more than 600 miles from Cleveland, the Boston Braves had staged their “miracle” 1914 season, which led them from the dregs to a World Series championship, so the proprietors of Cleveland’s team were probably hoping some of that Beantown magic would rub off on their squad.

Obviously, 1915 was a very different time and place than the world we now inhabit. Prejudice against Blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Native Americans was widespread and accepted in many quarters. When Sockalexis died, in fact, Cleveland’s Plain Dealer opined that his drinking problems were part and parcel of his being a Native American. While the world of 2020 is far from perfect, we have traveled quite a long way in 105 years when it comes to issues of justice and equality.

That being the case, the decision by the owners of the Cleveland Indians to change the name of the team after the 2021 season was the correct one, and probably overdue.

The announcement of the decision Monday was ultimately not all that surprising. Last year, the Indians eliminated the cartoon logo Chief Wahoo from all of its merchandise and its website, and this summer, the Washington, D.C., football team finally dropped the name Redskins after the protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. That name was much more problematic than Indians, since it’s defined in most dictionaries as a racial slur, but it might well have sped the decision-making timetable for the owners of the Cleveland baseball team. Moreover, the decision in Washington, D.C., was driven in part by pressure from commercial sponsors like Pepsi and FedEx. The writing was almost certainly on the wall in Cleveland.

Paul Dolan, the part-owner and CEO of the Indians, explained, “When a sports team is aligned with its community, it unlocks the ability to unite people from different backgrounds and bring people together in support of their home team.”

Sure, some fans of the Cleveland Indians are undoubtedly mourning the loss of the team’s name, since it’s tied up in tradition and has been around for generations. But baseball will still be happening at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, and the team should have a name that is not a relic of days long gone by. And, who knows, maybe a team called the Cleveland Blues or the Cleveland Buckeyes – two of the potential team names that are being mentioned – will be World Series winners. Since Cleveland hasn’t had one of those since 1948, that’s something else that’s overdue.