Note to @FOXSports announcers. Francisco Lindor was never a Cleveland Guardian. He was a Cleveland Indian until white liberals– not Indians– decided it was a racist name.

With Cleveland beating the Detroit Tigers on Saturday in Gm. 5 of the ALDS, Guardians jars throughout baseball will be overflowing. That’s because most baseball media and fans will reflexively call the team the Indians instead of the pre-fab name they adopted in 2021. Each time they have to throw a quarter in the jar.

Little wonder for the persistence, as the Indians nickname was around since 1911, allegedly honouring player Louis Soxalexis who was a big deal for a time in Cleveland baseball. Opinions vary, except that sometime after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 it became fashionable in liberal circles to take scalps deemed offensive. Did we say scalps? Oops. Put a quarter in the jar.

In Obama’s rush of enthusiasm for defining the entire culture as a racial struggle session pudding heads like Bob Costas decided that natives names on teams in every sport had to go. Those of a tendentious nature also insisted the use of Indian symbols on helmets or jerseys is a case of cultural appropriation. At the head of the shit list was Cleveland Indians.

Agitation begun in college culture-studies classes spread like wildfire (oops, another quarter) through the Woke media until the club relented in 2021, choosing the anodyne nickname Guardians having to do with a statue on a bridge and Bob Hope’s father. Don’t ask.

It was the same for the NFL Washington Redskins who were relentlessly shamed about their team’s nickname, even though the team’s sober indianhead logo was respectful of a native man, drawn by a native man , approved by natives councils and was a symbol of pride in much of the community. After years of resistance the team name was changed first to Washington Football Club and then to the (gack) Commanders.

There were dozens of other long-established team names that took an arrow (Oops, this is getting expensive). In Canada the apogee of political correctness was the campaign by Edmonton politicians to change the name of the CFL team away from Eskimos. Because blubber eaters, condescension etc. (Eskimos is the chosen name for American natives in Alaska.) In a move that offended everyone but city councillors the club is now called the Elks. EE, get it? In a stroke of kismet the team has been hot garbage on the field ever since.

As we wrote first in 2016: It would seem from reading media accounts that a vast movement of native Americans and Canadians is underway. Yet, what’s unique about this struggle is the almost total indifference for these virtuous pearl clutchers among the people most affected by the alleged abuse. Polling consistently demonstrates that, as tempests go, this one is predominantly hot air.

A 2004 poll showed that 90 percent of those native Americans polled did not object to the Redskins nickname. A 2016 Washington Post poll which duplicated the poll question asked in 2004, produced an identical result. In another WaPo survey of native Americans “pride” was the word most associated with the team’s allegedly hateful name.

The general public was not gripped by the Redskins debate either. As DC journalist George Will reports, “A 2013 AP-GfK poll showed that 79 percent of Americans of all ethnicities opposed changing it, and just 18 percent of ‘nonwhite football fans’ favored changing it.” National public opinion polls find that a majority of the general public support the team’s continued use of the name, ranging from 60 to 83 percent in recent years.

Those white liberal protesters who object to the nicknames are no doubt sincere about their feelings, but as crusades go this one is several demonstrators shy of the Selma march of 1964. (Which never stops progressives seeking to educate the “deplorables” in American culture.) Sure enough, Canadian native activist Douglas Cardinal thought it was time to get his name in the media again. But his belated complaint was briskly shut down by a judge.

To be sure, there is a range of native symbols caught up in this debate. The Indians name, allegedly to honor native player Louis Soxalexis who played for Cleveland in the first decade of the twentieth century, might be fairly benign. The Cleveland caricature logo, Chief Wahoo, is offensive on just about every level. 

The NHL Chicago Blackhawks name and logo, by comparison, seem to be respectful of the culture. The name was originally to honour not the native tribe itself but a branch of the U.S. military who used the nickname during WW I. In fact, natives often wear the Blackhawks logo themselves as cultural symbols. Ditto for the Braves’ name— although the fans’ war chant owes more to Hollywood than native culture. 

Because the Redskins play in the political fever swamp of Washington D.C. they have naturally received the most attention from activists and from media slavishly following the latest glittering progressive/ left object. Which allows people such as native activist Amanda Blackhorse, a Navajo, to proclaim, without facts, that “the majority of Native American people who have spoken out on this” want the name Redskins banned. And not get laughed into the Potomac. (BTW: The high school football team at Miss Blackhorse’s reservation New Mexico? The Redskins.)

Other zealots prefer a more hands-on approach to convincing natives how badly they’re served by these nicknames.  Folks such as Bob Costas are free to use their platforms to make their feelings known. Which is their right. But it doesn’t mean that they’re aided by the facts. The media have leapt in feet-first to promote the right to First Amendment rights while ignoring data.

All of which begs the question: If so many of those affected by this supposed insult don’t see it as an insult… then who is the progressive culture industry doing it for?  I’ll take your answer off-air.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

So Pete Rose escaped this world without being excused for being Pete Rose. His death at 83 ends one of the more regrettable episodes in hero worship. One of the five best players to ever play the game he blotted his copybook by being found out as a bettor on MLB, a sin he knew was inviolate in MLB. And then, somehow, denying that fact for 20 years.

It all ended last week with no one getting glory. MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti, who imposed the lifetime ban in 1989, died shortly thereafter— many said as a result of the stress the case imposed on him. Successive commissioners (Fay Vincent, Bud Selig, Rob Manfred) couldn’t move on from the mess, either. And Rose? Well, he did nothing to help his chances.

Somehow, in a world that can forgive anything if your name is Kennedy, Rose and the powers that be in baseball couldn’t rehabilitate the all-time leader in hits. Rose’s immense stubborness and the vengeful arm of the media voters who decide who makes Cooperstown produced a pathetic denouement for Rose and the sport. Particularly after MLB wholeheartedly embraced the betting industry the past decade

Was he guilty? Hell, yes. Did he perpetuate lame excuses and construct a grubby martyr narrative? Sure did. Had he alienated just about everyone who could get him to Cooperstown? Oh yeah. A recent HBO documentary series on him is an accurate portrait of a rude, uncouth character still worshipped by sycophants. But whose record as a player is impeccable.

But come on. There must have been a way. No small amount of blame should also be attached to the voters who select the new members of the Hall. Voters who moonlight as journalists covering the sport. Yes, MLB has left the selection in the hands of writers and broadcasters who see no conflict in doing the two jobs simultaneously. (They also vote on yearly awards that carry large monetary rewards.)

Many are downright vindictive and petty, who believe they’re cardinals of a church they’re running. Just as they’re doing to the steroid boys, a goodly number were not enchanted by Rose when they covered him and are content to go to their graves without solving the problem of Pete. More’s the shame.

Maybe his death will accelerate the process of honouring Rose and the Barry Bonds steroid crew. (Bonds’ pre-steroid career alone is worth of inclusion.) As we have said before there are plenty of players in Cooperstown who wouldn’t have gotten in without amphetamines (Rose was a big user.) There were likely sexual deviates and racists in an age when that stuff never made the news. Just give them a plaque that records their failings as well as their soaring accomplishments.

There will still be many who want to build themselves up by tearing down others like Rose. As we saw when hockey legend Bobby Hull died last year. His obit was barely dry before the negative nabobs arrived.

As we wrote in February of 2023: “That means that the kind of people who revel in these things immediately sprung into action about Bobby’s failings. A domestic assault in the 1960s. Questionable quotes to a Russian journalist about the Nazis. His penchant for being the last guy to leave a party. One online troll called him “a terrible person”.

They’re entitled to their opinion. As Marc Antony said of Caesar,  Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.”

I’ll let Bobby’s grandson Jude make the point. Jude Hull: “You’re allowed to have whatever opinion you want of my Grandfather and his past. To air it all out not 12 hours after he passed makes me want to puke. I hope those tweets help you sleep better at night.”

Like them, Bobby was a man of his times with failings. Ones he owned. But he was also a colossus as a cultural figure. Imagine if all the actors, athletes, musicians and artists we revere today were purged for their moral failings, their addictions, their infidelities, their chumminess with tyrants, their racial attitudes. There wouldn’t be many left, would there? Why does David Crosby get a loving obit but the same people slime Bobby Hull?

So, sure, list Bobby Hull’s failings. Dig deep into them to make a point about the kind of alpha male who rarely exists anymore. And how much more virtuous you are sitting at your keyboard spilling garbage incognito. List those who third-hand get the vapours from seeing everything he did as a victim-culture thing.

In a world that needs a smile, wants a distraction from the awfulness of a bureaucratic existence, Bobby Hull distributed happiness by the ton. He changed the business of hockey to make it a better livelihood for players by going to the WHA, supporting NHLPA reform. He showed up. His HOF son Brett said his father gave his family and others “a tremendous amount of great memories…Those of us who were lucky enough to spend time with him will cherish those forever.”

So cherish Pete Rose. Thorns and all. He didn’t murder anyone. He cheated baseball by betting. There are far worse things in life.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.