The Cleveland Guardians are rejecting President Donald Trump’s suggestion that they change their name and mascot back to the Cleveland Indians. Still, the Washington Commanders and the NFL have remained silent over the president’s demand they change their name back to Redskins.
On Sunday, the president took to his Truth Social account to call for the two teams to revert to their previous names before the rise of wokeness led to the jettisoning of their Native American names and imagery.
“The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team,” he wrote, “There is a big clamoring for this.”
“Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!” he said.
Since the president posted his desires to see pro sports ditch the woke and proudly support the Native American community, the two teams most involved in the issue have had very different responses.
The Cleveland Guardians, for instance, were dismissive of Trump’s exhortations. On Sunday, Guardians President of Baseball Operations Chris Antonetti said he and the team were uninterested in reverting to their previous name.
“We’ve gotten the opportunity to build the brand as the Guardians over the last four years and are excited about the future,” Antonetti told reporters, according to USA Today.
Trump has had a close relationship with the (formerly) Cleveland Indians. He has been a big supporter of Cleveland and even attempted to buy the team in 1983, although the deal was scuttled. And he has been adamantly against the name change from the Indians to the Guardians since the beginning.
Regardless, at least for now, it appears that the Guardians are resisting the reversal of the woke elimination of its 106-year-old team name that was initially bestowed to honor Louis Sockalexis, who played major league baseball for the Cleveland Spiders in the late 1800s and is credited as the first Native American to play professional baseball.
The NFL’s team in Washington D.C., though, has had a very different response to the president — or rather, no response at all. For its part, the Washington Commanders have yet to make any comment at all on the president’s plea to go back to being the Redskins.
Some expect this has to do with the fact that Trump has the power to upset the team’s plans for building a new stadium in the D.C. area.
Trump even suggested that he could “put a restriction” on the team if they don’t go back to their original name.
“I may put a restriction on them that if they don’t change the name back to the original ‘Washington Redskins,’ and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders,’ I won’t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
The team’s and the NFL’s silence on the matter may be due to their desire not to jeopardize their hoped-for stadium deal.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, X at WTHuston, or Truth Social at @WarnerToddHuston.
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