Cleveland Indians left out of all-time baseball jersey power rankings

A recent FanSided article ranked the top 30 baseball jerseys of all time, and the Cleveland Indians were noticeably left off the list.

Part of being a professional sports fans is blatantly being biased about one’s favorite team. Your team is always the best, or is just one player away from being great.

Cleveland Indians fans have reason to be confident and preach that the Indians are indeed the top team in the league, as a World Series berth in 2016 has the team primed to take the next step in 2017.

Part of cheering for a team involves repping the uniform, but Cleveland Indians fans are in a unique situation when it comes to this.

The Chief Wahoo logo has fans and individuals all throughout the realm of MLB split over whether it should continue to be used. Some cherish it as tradition, while other deem it offensive and urge for it to be left as a remnant of the past.

The controversy over the logo leads some to ignore it altogether, and its existence could explain why the Indians were left off a recent power ranking list.

A FanSided article published today ranked the top 30 baseball jerseys of all time, yet the Indians were nowhere to be found.

More from Away Back Gone

• Cleveland Guardians tantalizingly close to locking up AL Central tiebreakers
• Cleveland Guardians: Terry Francona becomes meme in profanity-laced ejection
• Say goodbye to defensive shifts and hello to bigger bases, pitch clock in 2023
• Cleveland Guardians: Shane Bieber second-fastest to 800 strikeouts in major-league history
• The next week will make or break the Cleveland Guardians’ season

There are two reasons why the team is absent from the list. The first is that the other 30 jerseys were simply better. However, the Indians have so much history it is hard to believe not one iteration of the jersey couldn’t qualify as one of the top 30 of all time.

The other reason, and the more likely one, is the inclusion of Chief Wahoo. Indians fans may be annoyed by this reasoning, but it is a fair criticism for those who see it as an offensive symbol.

And with the MLB potentially moving toward a decision to get rid of it altogether, its influence will dwindle with each passing year.

Yet this doesn’t take away from the history of the team, and all the success had in different versions of the jersey. The red script on the white jerseys during the Bob Feller years were iconic for fans at that time, while the red script on the blue jerseys during the dominance of the 1990s holds a special place in fans’ hearts.

Next: Indians absent from highest-paid list

Power rankings of this type are a matter of opinion, but the Indians should have seen at least one iteration of their jersey find itself onto this list.