Posted on 07/27/2025 9:33:06 PM PDT by george76
When the Cleveland Indians changed their name to the “Guardians” in 2021, it was supposed to be progress.
But for many Native Americans like me, it felt like something else entirely: being canceled.
On the Sunday of this past week, President Donald Trump stood up for us when he called on the team in Ohio to bring back its iconic name.
“Cleveland should do the same with the Cleveland Indians,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after calling for the Washington Redskins name to also be restored. “The Owner of the Cleveland Baseball Team, Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three Elections in a row because of that ridiculous name change. What he doesn’t understand is that if he changed the name back to the Cleveland Indians, he might actually win an Election.”
“Indians are being treated very unfairly,” Trump added. “MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!”
The original name wasn’t just a catchy title. It actually had meaning.
It was linked to Louis Sockalexis, a Native American outfielder who played for the then-Cleveland Spiders in the late 1890s.
Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot Nation, was the first Native American widely recognized in professional baseball. In 1897, he hit .338 with an .845 OPS in 66 games,
...
A 1915 edition of The Plain Dealer newspaper remembered his legacy clearly:
“Many years ago there was an Indian named Sockalexis who was the star player of the Cleveland baseball club,” the article said. “Sockalexis so far outshone his teammates that he naturally came to be regarded as the whole team.”
The article added that “fans throughout the country began to call the Clevelanders the ‘Indians’” as “an honorable name.”
After star player Nap Lajoie left the team in 1915, “Indians” was chosen as the new name — widely seen as a nod to Sockalexis.
That same year, The Boston Herald also praised Sockalexis in coverage of the renaming.
He died in 1913, but his impact was still fresh in the minds of fans and sportswriters.
But after the 2020 summer of wokeness, the activists — mostly white, childless liberals — succeeded in scrubbing his name from the public eye.
The self-righteous bunch were only helping the American Indian, right? Not even close.
All they accomplished, aside from deleting Aunt Jemima, was erasing Sockalexis and insulting many, many modern Native Americans, such as this sports fan. We enjoyed being celebrated by American culture.
Sockalexis wasn’t a mascot. He was a sports pioneer.
And his story deserves to be remembered, not canceled.
If anyone had bothered to ask most of us Native Americans if we were offended by being celebrated in sports, we would have told them to kick rocks.
Instead, the coastal elites who power the progressive outrage machine spoke for us and canceled a legend.
I liked “The Washington Football Team”. They should do that with all the teams. The Anaheim Baseball Team, The Boston Hockey Team, The Oklahoma City Basketball Team…….
Isn’t “Guardian” also an adult-diaper brand?
White liberals hate minorities.
Correct.
Are fans of the Guardians known as Wards?
The problem is that white liberals hate daddy and anything related like themselves.
Woke Indians are not without blame here. I clearly remember the one who for years would organize protests and beat a drum outside the stadium on opening day. Our local lib media would spotlight it frequently.
Yea! Let’s name our team after the frescoes on a bridge! That’ll show ‘em we’re woke! 🥸
Depends
Dodger, Astro, Rockie, assorted birds, fish, and articles of clothing. The current name isn’t bad. But changing it was stupid and unnecessary.
Womeness is a hammer looking at everything else as a nail.
Don't cover up the Leftists' wokeness that the league implemented.
Major League Baseball teams should also be forced to have rosters that are 50% women.
They try to remove Native American heritage and forget that they’d have to rename a lot of states/cities/cars/parks/lakes/mountains/deserts to do it.
True story...It was an honorable name for a legend!!
In a small town in Connecticut, there was a Road named ‘N Hollow Road’s, it was in an area called N Hollow. The area was for free and escaped blacks, Indians and whites. They decided to change it. It was a place where people were nice.
She must be beautiful, sir.
Good point. There are problems with so many sports nicknames.If they want to go there.
Boston Celtics - offensive to the Celtic people?
Notre Dame Fighting Irish - offensive to Irish?
Green Bay Packers - offensive to real meat packers?
Milwaukee Brewers- offensive to real brewers?
Pittsburgh Steelers - offensive to real steel workers?
New Orleans Saints, Los Angeles Angels , San Diego Padres - all offensive to the Catholic Church?
Texas Rangers - offensive to the law enforcement agency by that name?
Are all of the animal themed nicknames, offensive to animals?
People with too much time on their hands can find a lot of things to complain about.
Had not thought of it, but liberals are all about feelings, not facts, logic, tradition, etc, just feelings. So every time they saw the Redskins or Indians logo, they felt bad about living on “stolen land.” No logos, no bad “feelings.”
And that’s just from seeing a logo. Most of these weeping progressives are from coastal big cities. I guess if they traveled in North or South Dakota, Montana, etc, and saw real Native Americans, they’d want to gas them all? It’s how collectivists act, after all.
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