Philip Yenyo has been protesting outside Cleveland baseball stadiums for 30 years, demanding that the local major league baseball team change a name that many consider racist. But next spring, Yenyo will put down his shields and take his 11-year-old son to progressive field for the first time.
“We can finally go to a game,” said Yenyo, executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio. “I can’t wait to tell him. We have been waiting for this for a long time .. “
Yenyo will be able to attend because Cleveland announced on Friday that it would change its name from Indians to Guardians, becoming the latest sports team to move away from team names and mascots referring to indigenous peoples.
For decades, indigenous groups like that of Yenyo and other sports teams have asked to eliminate indigenous names, mascots, and images, insisting that they are racist, degrading, and promoting stereotypes. The momentum for sweeping change had built up in recent years and accelerated last summer amid social justice protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
In the wake of large-scale social justice protests following Floyd’s death, the The Washington Football Team has dropped the name “Redskins”. thanks in large part to pressure from sponsors like FedEx, Nike and Pepsi. Cleveland was considered the second highest Indigenous team name in American sport, and in December the team decided to make the change, after consultation with local and national indigenous organizations.
One of the organizations the team turned to was the National Congress of American Indians. Aaron Payment, first vice president of NCAI and also chairman of Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, praised Cleveland for making a difficult but appropriate decision.
“I’m sure there will be some setbacks,” said Dr. Payment. “But they’re on the right side of history and deserve credit for that. This new name closes the books forever with a derogatory name. “
Some of the loudest setbacks came from former President Donald J. Trump, who described himself as a “former” baseball fan and called the change a shame.
“A small group of people with absolutely crazy ideas and guidelines are forcing these changes to destroy our culture and heritage,” he said in a statement.
But the team has been moving unstoppably from the divisive name for years, and Guardians will be the fifth name in franchise history (the team was also known as Blues, Bronchos, and Naps). In 2019, Cleveland abandoned its Chief Wahoo cartoon logo, which Major League Baseball said was unsuitable for use on the field.
Terry Francona, the Cleveland manager and former player on the team whose father also played there, said the goal was to represent the entire city.
“It’s not about us,” he said at a press conference. “It’s about other people and you need to step out of your own skin and think about other people who may be a different skin color and what they are thinking. We try to be extremely respectful and I am really proud of our organization. “
The new name, which the association together with new logos in a. was introduced two minute video on the team’s Twitter account, has some response from Ohio residents who regularly cross the Cuyahoga River on the Hope Memorial Bridge. A group of massive, winged Art Deco sculptures on the span are known as guardians of traffic and are considered symbols of progress. You are only a few minutes drive from the team’s stadium.
The new logo of a flashing G with wings, which is borrowed from the statues, also has an Art Deco feel and the style of the new “Guardians” logo is intended to imitate the trusses at the bottom of the bridge. The colors stay the same: red, white and blue.
Paul Dolan, chairman and chief executive of the team, stated at the press conference that he is a fifth generation Cleveland who grew up with the old name.
“We recognize that the name change will be difficult for some of us and the transition will take time,” he said. “We hope and believe that this change will divert us from a divisive path and instead steer us into a future in which our fans, our city and our region are all united as Cleveland Guardians.”
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The club said it ran an extensive outreach program with around 40,000 fans over the past few months to find the new nickname and conducted 140 hours of interviews with community members and team members. They said they made a list of 1,198 possible names. Cleveland vice president of marketing and strategy Alex King said the Guardians of Traffic statues have grown in prominence and popularity over the years in the city, especially among younger adults who consume craft beers from mugs that are on Coasters, while wearing T-shirts, with each element representing the statues.
“We knew this would not be as resonant at the national level as it was locally,” he said, “and we are fine with that. We really wanted to emphasize the restaurant with the new name. “
For a while it seemed that the Spiders, the nickname used from 1889 to 1899 by a now-defunct Cleveland National League team, was a favorite. Others suggested a reference to the Cleveland Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which is just blocks from the stadium.
“I was hoping it was spiders,” said Yenyo. “But Guardians is also good. I was listening to sports talk radio this morning and people were complaining and saying they didn’t know what this was related to. If you’re a Cleveland, you know these things better. “
The Cleveland team said they plan to make the change official after the current season ends. After that was cleared up, Dr. Payment that his organization and others will focus on various other teams – such as the MLB’s Atlanta Braves, the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, and the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks – that use native names and images. All of these teams have said they have no plans to change their name.
But earlier this month, the Portland Winterhawks, a lower division hockey team, changed their logo from an indigenous person to a hawk and applauded Suzan Harjo, a Native American activist and one of the earliest proponents of the elimination of indigenous names and mascots.
“It was a good July,” she said of the two most recent changes. “It just shows that it’s never too late to do the right thing.”
Harjo said the explanation of the new name is bittersweet, however, because it cannot erase the decades of damage it and other similar names have caused.
“They have benefited from bigotry for a long time,” she said. “It did real harm to the Aborigines, and young children grow up with this tremendous pain.”
