Fuck "The Tribe"
I used to be a big fan of the Cleveland baseball team in the era of Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez. I cried in an Atlanta hotel when Jose Mesa blew the decisive save in the World Series against the Marlins.
I lost interest in baseball the further away I got from my playing days. I am unsure how anybody over the age of 16 has time to watch 182 three-and-a-half hour games.
My love affair officially ended with “the Tribe” sometime in October 2007 after J.D. Drew — an overpaid stooge during his time with my National League team, the Los Angeles Dodgers — sent Cleveland packing from the American League Championship Series with a Grand Slam in Game 6.
I was attending the University of Montana at the time. I was walking through the middle of campus wearing a Chief Wahoo hat like the dumb white dipshit I was (and still am according to whom you ask) when three Indigenous men from the Blackfoot Tribe accosted me.
They asked what my hat was about. I said it represented my team, the Cleveland Indians. They chuckled and asked if I had ever looked at the thing. One of them said something along the lines of, “Guys that look like you shouldn’t wear hats with cartoons that look like that.”
I took off the hat and considered it. I knew Wahoo began as a racist caricature but had never considered what people would say if you died the current one white and replaced the feather headdress with a yarmulke. I never wore that hat again.
When I returned to Ohio, I was put off by the sewer subset of the fanbase (Cavs and Browns fans are not immune from their pox) threatening nuclear war online if the franchise ever retired the racist chief. Not to mention the term “Indian” only came about because Christopher Columbus, the war criminal pedophile, thought his dumb honkey ass had landed in India.
Honestly, I never thought I would see the day the club would change its nickname. Baseball fans are traditionalist by nature and I assumed the Dolan family, who owns the $1.5 billion franchise with the fifth-lowest payroll, would never acquiesce to the demands of activists wanting them to ditch the name.
I was wrong. The Dolans will change the name, and it won’t try to hustle us by changing the name to “The Tribe,” either. Of course, we’re talking about a family with a son in the State Senate who once tried in a late budget session to sneak a tax break to his wealthy donors at expense of the local public school, so you always knew there was going to be some sort of catch.
The Dolan Family decided the “Indian” moniker to be offensive to a people who were almost exterminated by imperialism. So offensive, in fact, they will continue to use the name and branding for another year. They will also continue to sell merchandise, all but assuring that “Indians” merchandise will continue to appear for as long as possible in whatever they’re calling Jacob Fields.
Sad, sad day when you’re getting outflanked on the left from the odious Dan Snyder and the newly minted Washington Football Team.
For me, the answer is simple: Make way for return of the Cleveland Spiders. I’d also accept going way back to the city’s original baseball roots with the Cleveland Forest Citys and their sick color scheme that’s not dominated by red and blue.
However, I give the nod to the Spiders on two fronts. The older I have gotten, the more I appreciate what spiders do for our ecosystem. They are in the business of murdering the most annoying insects in the world in the most terrifying way possible.
Cleveland would also be wise to honor what I can only assume is the most legendary roster of FUCKING BALLER ASS NAMES that I have ever seen in my life.
Will I go back to cheering for the Cleveland baseball team when they complete the monumental task of not having racist branding in the year 2020? Absolutely not. That ship has sailed; I’m a diehard Dodgers fan a long as they’re in the World Series and that’s where my interest in the sport ends.
However, it will be nice to watch some of the worst people in the world flip their shit:
Oh no? More like, “Oh yes.”
THOSE WMDs. Dems have a problem, and workers, weed and wages are the answer… Why getting the most votes matters… Where the Underground Railroad passed through Columbus… Darke County heard mixed COVID messages, and now it’s Ohio’s No. 1 hotspot… Obama wasn’t a defender of norms; he was a coward.