The now accelerated (since last season’s ALCS against Toronto and all the negative, nationwide attention Wahoo drew during that series) and long overdue process of ridding Chief Wahoo from the official identity of the Cleveland Indians looks like it will reach its end point before the 2018 season and maybe sooner, according to Paul Dolan.
Talking to group at 1590 WAKR’s speaker series in Fairlawn yesterday, the Tribe owner acknowledged that the team and MLB haven’t exactly reached a middle ground on transitioning away from the racist red sambo. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has made his feelings clear since the offseason as he took increasingly more public stances on his/MLB’s desire for the Tribe to finally do something. Discussions have been ongoing, both parties have said at various times during the season, but Dolan indicated yesterday that while no agreement has been reached yet, it probably will be by Opening Day next year.
“We’re not exactly aligned on its future,” Dolan said. “But we will come to some understanding some time relatively soon.”
Plenty have piled on the angle that the Indians are fighting tooth and nail for the preservation of the hideous and offensive logo, and by all accounts they have been, but as Craig Calcaterra points out at NBC, a more plausible scenario is that we’re seeing a good-cop bad-cop routine played out for the benefit of Cleveland’s Keep the Chief sect. Indeed, we’ve heard from sources that the team would play it exactly this way with its fanbase: Listen guys, we’d love to keep it but Top Men at Major League Baseball are making us get rid of it. It’d be a smart PR strategy, for sure.
Also worth pointing out are Dolan’s comments yesterday that gave more than a head nod toward the real racism at play with Wahoo and Cleveland’s willful bubble mentality and blinders when it comes to our ability to see it.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2017.
Horrible biased article. Does chief wahoo ruin anyones day? Does it cause people to murder and do drugs? Is there more important things in life then bitching about a logo? Maybe like the homeless, drug problems, war, violence, etc. Everything can be turned into racism if you want, but this is a logo! If the media dropped it,no one would discuss it. Take a poll on who wants it and who wants it gone. bet the stays win! A true reporter writes an article that is unbiased and factual. Go write for CNN or something. Majority wants it to stay! Chief Wahoo should be the new emblem for Indigenous People day! Go to a game and see how many people have something with the Chief on them. Might shock you!
A total break with the logo (and team name) will obviously open a massive revenue stream through new gear…..but it will take someone with a shrewd vision in marketing to deliver a creative plan that will culminate on Opening Day 2018 — something that Paul Dolan and his inner-circle completely lack.
It would not open a mass revenue stream. They already have generated revenue with the new logo that is already in existence. And since the majority of people that actually wear Indians gear like the Chief, they will probably not buy new things on principle.
Scene refuses to cover the Robert Roche Chief Wahoo embezzlement scandal. He is a Native American that had a federal indictment on him released yesterday. The PD has real news articles about it without being an op-ed.
Mike Chew – Like all liberal fake news, they only publish op-eds that masquerade as news.
I live in Phoenix Arizona and around here everything is based off of native culture. Seriously, when people see the chief wahoo they think of the American League movie series. Also, about all that negative attention the chief drew during the world series, it was Joe Buck who drew all the negative attention. Nobody really likes that guy and I didn’t hear anything negative about the chief. Because of this article you have lost one more person in a potential fan base in Phoenix Arizona.
Just another liberal pussy trying to find something to cry about. Instead of writing a bullshit article, why don’t you just fill the space with more porn adds in your worthless magazine.
so embarrassing that we stick with this logo as long as we have. if wahoo is anything innocent it is as a goofy, baseball-loving children’s cartoon. any adult who insists upon keeping him is pretty dumb and has poor aesthetic taste. i think the accusations of racism have made people defend it beyond any form of rational thought and therefore don’t realize that it is a dorky logo. take it off because it’s racist, or take it off because we are a men’s baseball team from cleveland and not a little league team. whatever the reason, just take it off already. jeez.
and dumb people: please stop calling everyone who isn’t dumb a liberal pussy. you just look even dumber.
Sad
Yet another excuse to be able to post that “split bobblehead”…Samhoo…and write “Racist Red Sambo”…
Hey…whatever gets you through the night, Vince. You know as well as I do that The Chief could be eliminated tomorrow–but the diehards would continue to wear it on the streets of Cleveland…and elsewhere (like other ballparks) .for the next twenty years. Which they most likely will.
What will the next Mayor do…make it illegal to wear Wahoo merch on the street? What will MLB do, ban it from all venues under their control, and subject wearers to ejection and possible arrest? That would be a rather piss-poor PR move…especially at the Jake…talk about alienating the already-dwindling MLB fanbase. Especially at the Jake.
They can ban Wahoo all they like…but he’s not going away anytime soon, just like another symbol that we saw in Charlottesville…and other places. He won’t go away for good until all the old geezers (like me) are finally dead. Then all the whiners can pry all of our “gear” off our cold, dead corpses. Or bury us in it.
Chuckles the Clown
Only in America could an entire ethnic group be all but erased by deadly force while racist depictions of said ethnic group be staunchly defended by the descendants of those who killed said ethnic group. ‘Murica
My descendants never killed a single Native American. Too busy trying to survive (and flee) the pogroms of Poland and Russia. But they did manage to bring much of their music to America. It’s a lot easier to run from the Cossacks with a violin, instead of a piano.
Chuckles the Clown
Chief Wahoo is ugly and racist. It’s time for him to go!