Cleveland Indians Are Ditching Their Logo — Where Does It End?

Luckily for Americans, the modern social justice movement is tackling the really important issues — such as logos in baseball that are deemed offensive.

The Cleveland Indians announced on Monday that in 2019, they will no longer be using the Chief Wahoo logo on their hats, uniforms and stadium signs. The news was announced via an MLB press release from commissioner Rob Manfred’s office.

[lz_ndn video=33482084]

“The club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. [Larry] Dolan’s acknowledgment that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course,” Commissioner Manfred said.

Dolan is the principal owner of the Cleveland Indians.

[lz_third_party align=center width=630 includes=https://twitter.com/MLB_PR/status/958036827805573121]

If that is any indication, then it is the league that forced the Indians to lose the logo because they thought it was offensive to Native Americans. This is not that true, however: The Washington Post reported from a poll conducted in 2016 that nine out of 10 Native Americans were not bothered by the Washington Redskins name or logo. And seven out of 10 people had no problem with any use of Native American imagery in sports logos.

The Indians have had the Chief Wahoo logo since 1946. Why does Major League Baseball now, all of a sudden, have a problem with a logo that many Native Americans don’t? And if they did, it’s not much of a stretch to say offended Native Americans would have a few issues they’d want tackled in this country before silly sports logos.

The bigger question now is this: Just how far will social justice warriors go in terms of censoring sports logos? There are teams with logos of violent barbarians (Minnesota Vikings, Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Buccaneers); Americans (New England Patriots, New York Yankees); Catholic figures (San Diego Padres, Providence College Friars); more Native American logos (Washington Redskins, Chicago Blackhawks, Florida State Seminoles); Irish appropriation (Boston Celtics, Notre Dame Fighting Irish) — and more.

Plus, New Mexico State’s mascot, Pistol Pete, is holding two guns in his picture. Does this mean all of those logos and anything else that could possibly offend someone right now have to go?

Also, the Chief Wahoo logo is actually a cartoon — not an actual person. And the group it portrays does not have a problem with it.

Much of the mainstream media believed the charge from Adam Jones, though no one in the ballpark witnessed such an occurrence.

Major League Baseball has not quite fallen to the same level as the NFL or NBA when it comes to political correctness, but it is getting there.

Last season, the league saw one of its players kneel for the national anthem (Oakland Athletics catcher Bruce Maxwell). A player (Yuri Gurriel) was suspended for five games for slanting his eyes after hitting a home run off a Japanese pitcher (Yu Darvish). And Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Kevin Pillar received a two-game suspension for calling an umpire a “f***.”

Not to mention that one of the biggest stories early in the 2017 season was an unverified claim from Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones that someone threw peanuts at him and called him a racial slur. Much of the mainstream media believed it, though no one in the ballpark witnessed such an occurrence.

Forcing the Indians to change a logo that the commissioner himself deems offensive represents the greater problem of political correctness in American culture — a few are deciding for many.

Tom Joyce is a freelance writer from the South Shore of Massachusetts. He covers sports, pop culture, and politics and has contributed to The Federalist, Newsday, ESPN, and other outlets. 

(photo credit, homepage image: Indians fans are pumped for the ALDS, CC BY 2.0, by Arturo Pardavila III; photo credit, article image: Cleveland Indians vs. Toronto Bluejays, CC BY 2.0, by Erik Drost)