Chief Wahoo

This article is about the baseball team mascot. For the comic strip character, see Big Chief Wahoo.

Chief Wahoo is a trademarked logo for the Cleveland Indians baseball team. The illustration is a Native American cartoon caricature.

Although the club had adopted the name "Indians" starting with the 1915 season, there was no acknowledgment of this nickname on their uniforms until 1928. Prior to that, the uniforms contained variations on a stylized "C" or the word "CLEVELAND", just as they had from the club's beginning in 1901 (excepting the 1921 season, when the front of the club's uniform shirts read "Worlds Champions"^[1]). For 1928, the club's home uniform bore a patch on the left breast, a drawing of an "Indian" (Native American), in profile, and in full headdress. A smaller version of that same patch migrated to the home uniform sleeve the next year and remained through 1938. For 1939 the club wore the Baseball Centennial patch on the sleeve. Various other patches were worn for the next few years, none of them featuring Indians. In 1946, both the home and road shirts featured a City of Cleveland Sesquicentennial patch. In 1947, home and road uniforms began featuring the first incarnation of Chief Wahoo, replacing the old profile with a three-quarters face style. A newer style of Chief Wahoo replaced that one on the uniform shirt sleeve starting in 1951.^[2] That style has remained the model for Chief Wahoo to this day.

Protests against the use of the Chief Wahoo character greeted the opening of Jacobs Field in 1994. While the Cleveland police arrested the protesters for aggravated arson, such charges were eventually dropped. The protesters, led by Vernon Bellecourt, sued the city for violating their free speech rights. The protesters' lawsuit was dismissed by the Ohio State Supreme Court in 2004.^[3][4]

The logo continues to draw protests from some members of Native American tribes and the NAACP and is opposed by the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights.^[5]

According to polling results published in Sports Illustrated, "Although most Native American activists and tribal leaders consider Indian team names and mascots offensive, neither Native Americans in general nor a cross section of U.S. sports fans agree." However, the article didn't discuss any polling specifically on the Chief Wahoo caricature.^[6] According to the article, "There is a near total disconnect between Indian activists and the Native American population on this issue."^[6] However, the results of the poll have been criticized by Native American activists due to Sports Illustrated's refusal to provide polling information. Among the questions raised are how "Indians" were found and contacted, if they were concentrated in urban areas or on reservations, if a small number of tribes were overrepresented, and the exact wording and order of the questions.^[7] However, in 2004, a poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania essentially confirmed the prior poll's findings about Native American sports team names, showing that 91% of the American Indians surveyed in the 48 states on the mainland USA found the name of Washington Redskins football team acceptable and setting out in detail the exact wording of the questions.^[8]

Chief Wahoo remains a prominent trademark for the Cleveland Indians, appearing on game-use uniform, caps and merchandise. During the 2007 post-season both TBS and Fox Sports used it as the logo on the stats line for Cleveland's ballplayers^{[citation needed]} while the Christian Science Monitor ran an editorial deploring its continued use.^[9] Most major television and news networks continue to use the logo on their respective Indians' team page.^{[citation needed][original research?]}

In 2008, Major League Baseball introduced special caps with each team's cap logo woven into the "Stars and Stripes" that were worn during major American holidays. The Indians cap with Chief Wahoo emblazoned in stars and stripes caused some controversy. As a result, in 2009 MLB redesigned the Indians "Stars and Stripes" cap with a "C" logo replacing Chief Wahoo.^[10]

See also

• Native American mascot controversy
• Chief Noc-A-Homa
• Tom E. Hawk (similar mascot of affiliated Kinston Indians)
• Golliwog
• Sambo (racial term)
• List of sports team names and mascots derived from Indigenous peoples
• List of ethnic sports team and mascot names (all ethnicities)

References

1. ^ Uniforms in 1921
2. ^ Okkonen, Mark (December 1993). Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century. Sterling Publishing Company. pp. 37, 190. ISBN 0806984910. 
3. ^ "Cleveland Indians Protest Trial". Court TV. 2001-08-02. http://www.courttv.com/archive/trials/wahoo/mascotchart.html. Retrieved 2007-10-21. 
4. ^ Bellecourt v. Cleveland, 104 Ohio St, 3d. 439 (Ohio State Supreme Court 2004).
5. ^ "Statement of the United States Commission on Civil Rights on the use of Native American images and nicknames as sports symbols". 2007. http://www.usccr.gov/press/archives/2001/041601st.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-21. 
6. ^ ^{a b} S.L. Price & Andrea Woo, "The Indian Wars," Sports Illustrated, 4 March 2002, pp 66-71.
7. ^ King, Staurowsky, Baca, Davis & Cornel, C. R.; Staurowsky, E. J.; Baca, L.; Davis, L. R.; Pewewardy, C. (November 2002). "Of Polls and Race Prejudice: Sports Illustrated’s Errant "Indian Wars"". Journal of Sport & Social Issues 26 (4): 381–402. doi:10.1177/0193732502238255. http://www.aistm.org/fr.2002.of.polls.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-10 
8. ^ "Most Indians Say Name of Washington "Redskins" Is Acceptable While 9 Percent Call It Offensive, Annenberg Data Show". National Annenberg Election Survey. 24 September 2004. http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/Downloads/Political_Communication/naes/2004_03_redskins_09-24_pr.pdf. Retrieved 2008-08-11 
9. ^ Jonathan Zimmerman (2007-10-15). "The Cleveland Indians' mascot must go". The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1015/p09s01-coop.html. Retrieved 2007-10-21. 
10. ^ "MLB pulls Chief Wahoo off Cleveland's '09 Stars and Stripes cap". Yahoo!. 2009-05-20. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/MLB-pulls-Chief-Wahoo-off-Cleveland-s-09-Stars-?urn=mlb,164637. Retrieved 2009-05-25. 

External links

• National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media poster with Chief Wahoo
• Vernon Bellecourt obituary
• Trademark Registration No. 1031410 (Chief Wahoo image)