Tradition is a curious beast. Tradition means we keep doing things long after they make sense, largely because they have always been done that way. We continue the tradition often for the sake of continuing the tradition. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with that. Tradition can, after all, be the source of happy memories and enjoyable occasions. Tradition is also why there is still a festival in Belgium involving throwing cats out of a tower. The modern iteration of that tradition involves toy cats, not living ones, but the festival exists entirely because it’s traditional.
Tradition is the logic behind why so many sports teams have names and logos that are, at best, questionable, and at worst obviously racist. Take the Cleveland Indians, whose name has come under scrutiny seemingly because this is the first time anyone outside of Cleveland has actually cared about the Indians. Now, under the spotlight in Toronto, we have people suggesting that at least some elements of their name and image could be considered racist. The bright red cartoon man on their logos, wearing a feather and dubbed Chief Woohoo, is a caricature of an indigenous man. The name is an outdated term for the same.
Cleveland would argue that the name is actually in honor of a former player, Louis Sockalexis, in the well-meaning but clumsy way that was par for the course in the early 20th century. The first famous indigenous baseball player, Sockalexis had a famously strong throwing arm and had to endure a ton of racist derision at the time. “The man who said that there are no good Indians but dead Indians or words to that effect,” said The Sporting Life, “surely never saw Louis Sockalexis.” He was also an alcoholic, which lead to the end of his career. Reading what was printed about him – the above quote is actually unambiguously positive compared to much of the coverage at the time – I don’t really blame him.
There’s argument over how true the legend is – the name might be in place because the Boston Braves had a great season the year before Cleveland was in desperate need of a new name, and going with Indians was a way to try to ride on the coattails of that success. Whatever the actual story might be, the name had become a tribute to Sockalexis in the intervening years, likely as an attempt to make the name itself seem less racist. One would argue that even as an intended tribute, going with the bright red cartoon as a logo doesn’t really say tribute, instead coming across as the same mockery that Sockalexis himself dealt with for the entirety of his life and career.
The reason the team continues to be called the Indians, years later, is not the tribute, it’s tradition. There are likely many Indians fans who don’t know much about Sockalexis. My crash course on the history of Cleveland baseball suggests the team is only the Indians because it’s the first team name that stuck after years of name changes – I personally like the Cleveland Spiders, though I suppose it would be difficult to make a logo that wouldn’t make a certain percentage of the population run from the stadium in fear. But now, years later, we have piles of merchandise, branding and tradition that the people in charge don’t want to get rid of. When people think of baseball in Cleveland, they think of the Indians, and choosing a new name would require a lot of effort to establish the new tradition.
But you could do an actual tribute to Sockalexis without calling your team the Indians and by changing the logo to something a bit more appropriate. Call yourself the Louis – there are already too many baseball teams called the Sox – get a talented graphic designer to make an appropriate logo, and actually do tribute to the man who you have claimed to do tribute to for decades. It has continuity with the old brand while no longer being at all racist, it turns from a caricature to a tribute. Right now, the Sockalexis legend exists because Cleveland fans are trying to justify a logo they know people are uncomfortable with, but I’d argue that the player deserves some recognition for playing ball in spite of a culture that would rather he stayed far from the public eye.
Tribute doesn’t apply to every questionable sports name – the Washington Redskins, for example, can’t claim any specific person as tribute, though they’re also tied to the Boston Braves, from back when they shared a stadium. In those cases, they have to just drop tradition entirely and start something new and completely unrelated. It’s not good when a team is more closely associated with the controversy behind its name than the play on the field, and whether or not something is a tradition should not play into keeping a brand. It feels like keeping a tradition for the sake of doing so, in spite of real objections, which is the kind of logic that makes people throw cats from a tower.
