Change is good, but keep a place in your heart for the Cleveland Indians: Paul Hoynes

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Paul Dolan isn’t asking you to forget the Indians. He’s asking you to give the Cleveland Guardians a chance.

“I’m 63 years old, and they’ve been the Indians since I was aware of them, probably at 4 or 5 years old,” said Dolan. “So it will take a long time. But we’re not asking anybody to give up their memories or the history of the franchise that will always be there. And for people my age and older, most of our life is going to be living as an Indian and not as a Guardian (fan).”

It was a good thing to hear from the owner of the newly-named Cleveland Guardians. They will stay the Indians until the end of this season. Then the changes will really start.

If you know anybody who has room for the huge Indians sign above the left field scoreboard, give them a call. It sounds like it’s going to be available.

“I know it’s too big for my basement,” said Dolan.

I’m 70 years old. I was born in Cleveland and grew up in Cleveland Heights. I’ve known the baseball team by one name — the Indians.

My job since 1983 has been to cover the Indians. When they were bad, they were the Whimpering Wahoos. When the were good, they were Team Streak or the Wahoo War Wagon.

One year they had The Bullpen From Hell. Another year, they introduced us to Zombie Baseball.

When the Indians played on the lakefront, it wasn’t Municipal Stadium. It was Ice Station Zebra on those cold and miserable April nights. When the humidity, heat and midges arrived in July, it was the Sauna By the Sea.

When the Indians moved to Progressive Field in 1994, it wasn’t a ballpark, it was Disneyland. The Taja Mahal with 90 feet between the bases.

But always, day in and day out, they were the Indians or the Tribe.

My mom was a nurse who worked at Charity Hospital. On Sunday afternoons I’d jump in the car with my dad to go pick her up. We’d usually be listening to the Indians on the radio while driving down Carneige Avenue. They always seemed to be losing and I was always complaining about why they couldn’t score more runs.

My father would just laugh and shake his head. When one of his favorite players would come to the plate, somebody like Jimmy Piersall, he’d say to the radio, “Have you got a hit in your system, Jimmy?”

Those are memories that a name change can’t touch.

I never found the name offensive. It was the baseball team that my mom and dad took me to see. It was the same team my friends and I would go watch from the bleachers at the old stadium.

Still, some people did find it offensive and the reason. The team dropped the Chief Wahoo logo in 2018. Following the death of George Floyd in May of 2020, and the nationwide unrest that followed, the Indians announced that they would look into changing their name. In December of 2020, they said they would change the name.

The reasons for the change made sense, none moreso than Dolan saying that a professional sports team should bring a city together, not divide it.

Yes the Guardians will always be the Indians to some fans. There’s nothing wrong with that. The new name doesn’t erase the past. They’ve been called the Indians for 106 years.

Raja Davis’ game-tying homer in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series isn’t going anywhere. The same goes for Albert Belle’s 50-50 season in 1995 or Lenny Barker’s perfect game in 1981.

This is a way to bring peace to the situation. To give the organization a chance to do good things in the community, while not constantly answering questions and defending itself about its own name.

Dolan and the Indians knew how hard this would be for fans. That’s why there are strong links between the new name and the one that will soon be retired.

The team colors — navy, red and white — will stay. The jersey script used for Guardians and Indians is nearly identical. The fact that the last five letters in each name are the same is not an accident.

When Jacobs Field opened, the steel framework of the ballpark was left exposed to resemble the nearby bridges over the Cuyahoga River.

The Guardians name, along with its logos, is tied to the Guardians of Traffic sculptures on the Hope Memorial Bridge right outside Progressive Field.

They are not named after the bridge, but it is an unescapable anchor, something that roots them in Cleveland. The lettering on their jerseys represents the architecture of the bridge.

You can hate the new name all you want. Or you can try to understand why it was changed, while always holding the Indians and Tribe in your heart.

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