Becoming the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves

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The roots of the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves go back more than a century.

Officials of the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians both find themselves under renewed assault by social activists this week for their teams’ uses of nicknames viewed by some as demeaning.

It’s nothing new for either team, both of which have been forced by social pressures to modify the ways in which they use imagery to convey their brands. For instance, both teams have abandoned the practice of using live or cartoonish mascots – Chief Nok-A-Homa in Atlanta and Chief Wahoo in Cleveland – that once were considered popular, but which over time drew extensive criticism for what was perceived as their reliance on stereotypes.

What is often lost in the playing out of such social pressure movements is the context within which the original team name was chosen. The odd thing is that an understanding of that process would not necessarily reflect negatively on those calling for change; indeed, it may buttress their cases.

But it may do so for reasons change advocates may prefer not to acknowledge. And for that reason, to the extent they are aware of the contextual basis for the original name, activists may choose to ignore or minimize that context anyway.

Neither the Braves nor the Indians nicknames have pure, non-controversial origins. Indeed, in both cases, the only good argument for retaining them is probably the simple fact that they have been in use for more than a century.

That being so, and given the saccharine way both are applied today, it is a fair question how much, if any, actual harm is done by their use.

A detailed view of “Chief Wahoo” Cleveland Indians logo used by the team. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /

It’s fair today to ask whether the Cleveland Indians honor something worth honoring.

Cleveland Indians officials for decades have touted the team nickname as an honorific bestowed to celebrate the accomplishments of one of the first Natives to reach the major leagues. That player was Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot tribe who from 1897 through 1899 played for the National League’s Cleveland Spiders, a predecessor team to the American League’s Indians.

When the Indians franchise was created as an original member of the American League in 1901, it was commonly referred to as the Blues, a reference to the dominant color of their uniforms. In short order, however, that changed. In 1902 the team obtained the rights to Napoleon Lajoie, probably baseball’s pre-eminent star of the era.

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So dominant was Lajoie’s presence that the club unofficially — and then officially — became known as the Naps in his honor. They remained the Naps through the season of 1914 after which Lajoie, then approaching 40, was sold to the Philadelphia Athletics.

Since it obviously wouldn’t do to have a team named after a guy playing for an opponent, a contest was staged that winter to select a new team name. Fans supposedly sent in suggestions to a panel, which reviewed them and selected “Indians” as the new designation.

Louis Sockalexis

The announcement of the new name came without any formal explanation for why it was chosen. Over time, however, those supposedly in the know said it had been suggested by a long-time fan to honor Sockalexis. If nothing else, the timing was suggestive. Sockalexis had died only one year earlier of heart ailments at the age of 42.

His death was widely reported in the local press, Sockalexis having been widely regarded among fans of baseball in the city. So there is at least plausibility to the contention that a sympathetic fan, acting so close to the player’s death, would have suggested honoring him.

Although Sockalexis was not the first member of a tribe to play in the major leagues, he was the most meteorically successful. In his first 60 games, he batted .370 and was the talk of the league. He homered in his April home debut. On May 1 he hit safely four times, one of them a triple.

In his first game at the Polo Grounds, Sockalexis homered off Amos Rusie, the most dominant pitcher of that age.

It all ended as quickly as it began. Over the July 4 weekend, Sockalexis was injured under circumstances that probably involved alcohol. His history with that libation is the primary reason why, assuming the name ‘Indians’ was chosen to honor him,’ it was probably a poor choice.

Alcohol

Sockalexis’ problems with liquor extend an indefinite distance back to his college days. How far back Is not clear. What is clear is that during his brief enrollment at Notre Dame over the winter of 1896-97. He ran afoul of the local authorities. That February, the South Bend Tribune reported that the college athlete had been arrested following a drunken spree at a local brothel run by a woman known in that city as Pop Corn Jennie.

Sockalexis was quickly expelled, but he was saved from jail time when Spiders manager Patsy Tebeau arrived in South Bend offering the locals a deal: If they’d free the player, he’d post bail, make good the damages and take the ballplayer back to Cleveland with him.

In other words, Sockalexis signed to avoid jail time.

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As noted earlier, explanations vary for how Sockalexis was injured that July 4 weekend and why he declined so precipitously. But there is little doubt that liquor played a role. “I loved the firewater,” he would later freely admit. Whatever the reason, Sockalexis rarely played during the second half of the 1897 season. He batted just .224 in 21 games in 1898 and lasted just seven games into the 1899 season before being released as essentially uncontrollable.

He never played major league baseball again, drinking his way from one job to another until his death.

Proponents of retaining the Cleveland Indians nickname today to present it as a memorial to Sockalexis, which It may well be. Opponents note the lack of documentation but look beyond the more obvious criticism – that he was a terrible role model – because acknowledging that plays into negative if dated stereotypes about Indian behaviors.

But the reality is that to the extent the Cleveland team did choose to honor the player shortly after his death, they picked a romanticized image of a deeply flawed individual to place on the team’s pedestal.

(Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) /

It’s fair today to ask whether the Atlanta Braves honor something worth honoring.

Unlike the Sockalexis case, there is little question about the origin of the Braves nickname for the team that now plays in Atlanta.

More than a century ago, while the team was a fixture in Boston, it became an informal custom to name the team after its owner.

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That is why when two brothers named George and John Dovey purchased the team prior to the 1907 season, they became identified as the Boston Doves. John Dovey sold the team following the 1910 season to William Russell, at which time the Doves became the Rustlers.

That lasted just one season until Russell in turn sold the team to a New York-based political functionary named James Gaffney.

As amusing as it might be to consider a major league team known as the Gaffes, Gaffney had a more readily identifiable trait. He was a recognized insider at Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party machine that ran New York City. The Tammany Hall mascot in those days was the Brave; Tammany politicians and functionaries were known as Braves. So when Gaffney assumed ownership of the Boston National League team, they immediately became known as the Braves in deference to Gaffney’s well-publicized political connections. Gaffney even adopted Tammany’s Braves logo as the team’s own.

Gaffney sold his interest in the team less than a decade later, but apparently retained a silent financial interest. In any event, by that time the Braves had won the 1914 World Series and the name had become a fixture.

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That fixture remained until the mid-1930s when the team was purchased by a group led by Robert Quinn. One of his first actions was to change the team name, not because he considered it offensive to Natives but in order to disassociate the club from its Tammany roots.

Quinn chose to re-flag the Braves as the Boston Bees, and it was as the Bees that the club paid for five seasons.

Perhaps due to the team’s poor play — the Bees never finished in the National League’s first division — the name change never really caught on. So prior to the 1940 season, the Braves’ name was reinstated. In the interim, and particularly since the 1960s, there have been various efforts to rebrand the team on the argument that the term Braves is racially insensitive and/or biased.

But through team relocations to Milwaukee and then Atlanta, the nickname has remained. Today there is a general presumption that the name was ginned up to conjure images of Native fighting warrior spirit.

The reality, though, is different. Historically the Braves do not memorialize frontier conflict so much as they honor big-city political graft and corruption.

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To the extent one believes the Braves nickname should be retired, that is by far the more accurate historical rationale for doing so.

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