I hear where the Cleveland Indians baseball team are preparing to change their name. They retired their traditional mascot, Chief Wahoo, last January, and will reportedly pick a new name in 2021. The change appears to be unrelated to the COVID pandemic, but who knows? Public health officials seem to be running the whole country lately.
Here’s a picture of their old uniform, when Chief Wahoo was still playing an active promotional role.
The proposed change has stirred up quite a bit of controversy among the fans in Cleveland. Some folks are overjoyed that the club finally made this decision, while others will no doubt continue wearing Chief Wahoo t-shirts for the next several decades, as a way to protest the name change, or just to remember the good old days when an entire racial group could be honored with a goofy cartoon logo.
A related controversy concerns the direction the team might take with the new name.
The Cleveland White Guys? The Cleveland Crackers? The Cleveland Honkies?
One very popular, and perhaps more sophisticated suggestion seems to be: the Cleveland Caucasians.
Nothing is the same anymore. Take blue jeans. They used to feature these cute little brass rivets at the stress points in the fabric. What happened? As far as I can tell, little brass rivets didn’t cause any political issues. No one was protesting outside the baseball stadium, holding a sign that said, “Rivets are Un-American”.
Where did the little brass rivets go?
Back when I was in school, my teachers used to warn me that “change is inevitable”, but they never warned me about baseball teams changing the names they’ve been using for the past 100 years. They never talked about puberty, for example. Boy, did they miss their chance with that one.
They didn’t mention that half of us would wind up divorced, or drinking non-alcoholic beer, or falling for every right-wing conspiracy theory that came along. It was just this vague, “Change is inevitable, children.”
So many things are different recently, especially this year. One day, I’m enjoying a pleasant lunch at my favorite restaurant, chatting with my favorite waitress; the next day, someone has declared “Level Red” and the sign on the restaurant door says, “Take-out Only”… and the only thing left on the menu is nachos.
I woke up this morning, wondering if I’m even on the same planet. And that was, in itself, was a big change, because yesterday I was still pretty sure I was on the same planet. But this morning I’m wasn’t. I mean, I wasn’t sure. But now I’m thinking, I’m really not on the same planet.
I suppose that sounds confusing, so I can run through that again, more slowly.
Yesterday, Wednesday, I was on the same planet, or at least I thought I was.
This morning, Thursday, as I awoke, I wasn’t sure if I was on the same planet. I was wondering about it.
Now I am fully awake, and I have come to the definite conclusion that, in fact, I am not on the same planet.
All of which illustrates perfectly how quickly it’s all changing.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.