The Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks, two recent expansion teams, began the National League Championship Series last night. The Red Sox will face Cleveland.
I call the team "Cleveland", because I object to using the name of an ethnic group - in this case "Indians" - as a team nickname. There are several other similarly offensive team names in the US - such as Braves and Redskins - but every one of them denotes Native Americans.
The current justification for these names is that they honour native peoples. Which is just a modern way of saying: shut up and go away.
As offensive as all these names are, only the Cleveland baseball team uses a hideous racial caricature as their logo. No other ethnic group is "honoured" in this way.
But what if they were? Do you think we'd see any objections?
Cleveland management claims the team's name and logo is a tribute to the first Native American to play in the Majors. Is that true? Read and learn.
Here's another question. If the logo is an honour, why, at Major League Baseball's inaugural Civil Rights Game, did the Cleveland players wear caps with only the letter C?
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