Cleveland Indians: Chief Wahoo getting cut back

Cleveland Indians’ owner Paul Dolan gave the official news that Chief Wahoo will no longer be the team’s primary logo, but the Chief isn’t being retired.

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It’s been something we’ve seen coming for a while. The Cleveland Indians have slowly scaled back the usage of Chief Wahoo over the past few years, and now Dolan has cleared up the point that he will no longer be the team’s primary logo. “We have gone to the Block C as our primary mark,”

said Tribe owner Paul Dolan.

“Clearly, we are using it more heavily than we are the Chief Wahoo logo.”

Dolan did stress that there are “no plans to get rid of Chief Wahoo, it is part of our history and legacy.” With so much criticism from the Native American community, it’s a bit surprising they haven’t chosen to remove it more than they have. The Washington Redskins have faced the most opposition for their name and logo and continue to each year.

The Indians have made the Block C the new primary logo, which is anything but offensive, or exciting for that matter. But Chief Wahoo will remain on the sleeve of the uniform and on the home caps–as that was the top selling cap of the Indians last season.

"“We do have empathy for those who take issue with it. We have minimized the use of it and we’ll continue to do what we think is appropriate.” -Indians’ owner Paul Dolan"

While Dolan says they have no plans to remove it, saying they will do what they think is appropriate could be dictated by those outside of the organization. If opposition continues to build, Dolan and the Indians might not have a choice but to remove the Chief from Cleveland.

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It’s a difficult position to be in when you’re talking about a team that was named a long time ago when things were looked at differently. Most–if not all–fans look at it simply as their team’s name. They don’t think of it as being offensive. When they think of Indians in Cleveland it’s guys like Kenny Lofton, Albert Belle, Bob Feller–hell, even the fictional Jake Taylor and Willie Mayes Hayes. I don’t envy the position on deciding the fate of Chief Wahoo in the future.