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Cleveland Indians: 3 name changes that embrace the city

By Chad Porto

Cleveland Indians Nolan Jones (Photo by Ron Schwane/Getty Images)
Cleveland Indians Nolan Jones (Photo by Ron Schwane/Getty Images) /
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WARREN, MAINE – 1893. Native American Lou Sockalexis, later partly responsible for the naming of the Cleveland Indians, poses with his 1893 Warren team, part of the Knox County League in Maine. (Photo by Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)
WARREN, MAINE – 1893. Native American Lou Sockalexis, later partly responsible for the naming of the Cleveland Indians, poses with his 1893 Warren team, part of the Knox County League in Maine. (Photo by Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images) /

The Cleveland White Rocks

The story of the team being named the Indians after Louis Sockalexis is more myth than fact. It’s actually more a lie than anything. Sockalexis never played for the Cleveland Indians franchise. In fact, the Cleveland Spiders were not the former name of the Indians. It was an entirely different club. Sold off and sent away for parts. Sockalexis played just 94 games for the Spiders nearly two decades before the Indians came to be as a team name. He wasn’t even good enough to stick around for a terrible Spiders team, having been cut due to his poor performance on a squad that went 20-134.

Do you really think a bench scrub on the worst team of all time was honored in super-racist 1915? No. Not even slightly. The two clubs weren’t even owned by the same people. Frank Robinson (not that one) owned the Spiders while Charles Somers was the principal owner of the new club.

There isn’t any way shape or form that the Spiders legacy and the Indians history are in any way shape or form tied to one another, other than they existed in the same city. It’s like saying the Los Angeles Rams (formerly the Cleveland Rams) and the Cleveland Browns are the same franchise. They’re not.

Yet, the idea of honoring the first known player from the Penobscot Tribe (Sockalexis) isn’t a bad idea. First Nations people deserve a positive and dignified portrayal and the Indians just aren’t cutting it. Assuming the tribe signs off on it, the White Rocks would be the perfect way to pay homage to the tribe that Sockalexis came from.

Penobscot means “the people of where the white rocks extend out”, and hail from Maine.  The White Rocks may not have much barring on Cleveland as a historical landmark or piece of natural geography (we can make some, let’s be honest) but it would right a wrong. Using Sockalexis as an excuse for an incorrect name has to be done away with. Naming your team after his tribe, however, may in fact be a way to honor him and his people.

As long as you do it with tact, grace, and dignity.

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