Following the major rise of racial injustice protests in July of 2020, Washington’s National Football League team changed their name from the “Washington Redskins” to the “Washington Football Team.” In support of the protests and the racial justice movements, other professional sports teams have raised ideas of changing their criticized names. 

The Major League Baseball team for Cleveland, OH, presently named the “Cleveland Indians”, released a statement on Dec. 13 to change their name. The MLB team has been called the “Cleveland Indians” for over 100 years.

The baseball team has said in past interviews that the name was originally intended to honor a former player, Louis Sockalexis, on Cleveland’s major league club team the Cleveland Spiders. Sockalexis was a member of the Penobscot tribe back in the 19th century.

For many years, Native American groups and other activists have protested against Cleveland’s use of Indians as its name as well as other imagery used by the American Baseball League. In 2019, the team removed the contentious Chief Wahoo logo from its professional caps and jerseys.

“We will review the best path forward with our name,” said Cleveland’s MLB team owner Paul Dolan.

The idea of going back to one of baseball team’s original names, such as the “Cleveland Spiders”, is one of the most popular conspiracies. The team went by the name back in the early 1900s.

Another popular conspiracy for the new name change is “Cleveland Baseball Team.” This new name goes along with Washington State’s NFL team changing to the “Washington Football Team.”

The team has not yet decided on their new name as of Dec. 31. Many fans have personally decided to call the team the “Cleveland Baseball Team” by tweets and designing new logos.

The team plans on using their new team name for the 2021 MLB season. Their official merchandise and other affiliated items will be changed according to the new name.

“There is definitely some pain in this. It’s the end of an era or the beginning of an era,” Dolan said. “But accompanying that is the recognition and maybe even excitement that we’re going on to do something that is better.”