Cleveland Indians owner speaks out on name change: 'The name is no longer acceptable in our world'
After years of debate and controversy, the Cleveland Indians are changing their name — a move that will happen after the 2021 season, with owner Paul Dolan saying Monday the name “is no longer acceptable in our world.”
News of the impending name-change broke Sunday in an anonymously sourced New York Times story, but the Indians announced the decision on Monday with Dolan giving a comprehensive interview on the subject to the Associated Press.
In it, he talks about his own awakening toward the suffering the name has brought to Native Americans, his first choice for a replacement, why he’s already decided against it and what’s next in the saga. First, it was downplaying their Chief Wahoo logo, then getting rid of him altogether. Now it’s officially changing the name of the ballclub.
“It was a learning process for me and I think when fair-minded, open-minded people really look at it, think about it and maybe even spend some time studying it, I like to think they would come to the same conclusion: It’s a name that had its time, but this is not the time now, and certainly going forward, the name is no longer acceptable in our world,” Dolan told the AP.
The Indians say they’ll still sell team merch to ‘acknowledge our history’
While Dolan says the name is “no longer acceptable in our world” — the Indians believe logos and merchandise are still OK to sell.
The team said Monday that while it’s changing the name, it will continue to sell merchandise with the historic logos. This is not unlike when they stopped wearing Chief Wahoo logos on the field, but still sold merch with it.
The Indians say they'll drop their nickname, but not before 2022 season. Also: "We will continue to sell selected merchandise featuring our historic names and logos, including Chief Wahoo as a way to acknowledge our history." (1/2)
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) December 14, 2020
"As part of our ongoing commitment to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is our intention to donate profits from the sale of Chief Wahoo merchandise to Native American-focused organizations and causes." (2/2)
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) December 14, 2020
Why Dolan decided against his preferred name
There are plenty of opinions already about what the club’s new name should be — with people who want them to return to the Cleveland Spiders, the original pro baseball team in Cleveland from the late 1800s, or change to something more pop culture-based like Cleveland Rocks or Cleveland Wild Things.
Dolan initially had another choice — the Tribe, which had already been a common nickname for the team. But he’s already decided against it, telling the AP:
“We are not going to take a half-step away from the Indians,” he said. “The new name, and I do not know what it is, will not be a name that has Native American themes or connotations to it. Frankly, that (Tribe) would have been a name that I would have loved to pivot to.
“But in talking to these groups, they made it very clear that the issues that are attached to the Indians don’t go away with Tribe, particularly since Tribe has been tied to the experience of our team for many many decades,” he said.
The next steps in Cleveland’s name-change process
The Indians will be the Indians in 2021, Dolan said, but the process of transitioning into a new name has already started. He told the AP:
“We’ll be the Indians in 2021 and then after that, it’s a difficult and complex process to identify a new name and do all the things you do around activating that name,” Dolan said. “We are going to work at as quick a pace as we can while doing it right.
“But we’re not going to do something just for the sake of doing it. We’re going to take the time we need to do it right.”
Dolan said the team will not adopt an interim name until choosing its new one.
“We don’t want to be the Cleveland Baseball Team or some other interim name,” he said. “We will continue to be the Indians until we have identified the next name that will hopefully take us through multiple centuries.”
This move isn’t a surprise, since the team announced it was going to look into a name change earlier this year, after the Washington Football Team decided to drop the Redskins name. That began a series of discussions with fans, activists and Native American groups about the path forward.
The main complaint when a change like this happens is that tradition or history is being forgotten, but Dolan says that won’t be the case in Cleveland.
“We are going to honor our past,” he said. “We’re not walking away from our past. We’ll be the Cleveland Indians of 1915 to whatever year is that we ultimately change. We will always celebrate that. I don’t think we have to ignore it.
“But from the day we make the change, the new history that we build together as a community with our team will be under the banner of a different name.”
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Mike Oz is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @mikeoz or contact him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com.
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