Shed some light on offensive team names

[TooLiveBrew]

Let's say that one day, Notre Dame changes their nickname to not offend the Irish. Would there be a lot of pissed off fans? Absolutely. Would every Irish person in the country jump right on the season ticket waiting list, and watch the Notre Dame Wildcats play every Saturday? Doubtful.

 

The mascot, not team name for Cleveland is the offensive part, whereas with Wash. it's the name & not the logo (imo). I don't think the nickname "Irish" is akin to "Redskins" -- it'd have to be more like "Drunken Micks", which personally (Irish is the largest slice of my heritage) would bug the crap out of me.

[Fatter than Joey]

Let's say that one day, Notre Dame changes their nickname to not offend the Irish...

 

You may be right about that, however that has nothing to do with the Redskins, or another group that may be offended by another team's name.

[jaybird2001wi]

I read the book, "Baseball," by Ken Burns (most of you probably watched or heard of the PBS documentary of the same name) and it basically describes the origin of the Indians name in Cleveland.

There was a myth that the Indians were named after a former player of the then-Cleveland Naps, Louis Sockalexis. The sidebar which I read in "Baseball" suggests that they renamed the Cleveland club, the "Indians" in honor of Sockalexis. There was a legend that Sockalexis could have been one of the greatest players in Baseball history had it not been for his intense alcoholism, which claimed his life early on.

However, the Naps were renamed the Spiders after Nap Lajoie was traded to the Philadelphia Athletics and it took years for them to switch from the Spiders to the Indians. The team owner of the Cleveland Spiders allowed the fans to vote for a new name through the Cleveland newspaper sometime in the early 20th century with fans voting in favor of the Indians.

But there is some conflicting reports that the Indians were named as a "knock-off" of the then-Boston Braves.

 

But during the turn of the 20th century, several Native American names did not exist for most sports teams. The Atlanta Braves were originally known as the Boston Red Caps, according to baseball-reference.com. It wasn't until 1912 that the team was named the Braves but after the 1935 season, the Boston team changed its name to the Boston Bees for a short time before going back to the Braves nickname in 1941.

 

It should also be noted that the Cincinnati Reds were once deemed as an "offensive" team name due to the war on Communism. They changed from the "Reds" to the "Red Legs" from 1954-1959.

 

As for the Washington Redskins NFL team, I am not totally sure of why they named them the Redskins, but according to wikipedia, they used to be located in Boston around the time the baseball Boston Braves were there.

 

Aside from that, there are some offensive high school team nicknames in our own backyard. As a favor to my former colleague at UW-Whitewater who held an editor post with the Oconomowoc Focus, I covered the Oconomowoc High School basketball team for a game and found the team name, "Cooney," to be offensive. Except the actual school name was Coons.

[TooLiveBrew]

Aside from that, there are some offensive high school team nicknames in our own backyard. As a favor to my former colleague at UW-Whitewater who held an editor post with the Oconomowoc Focus, I covered the Oconomowoc High School basketball team for a game and found the team name, "Cooney," to be offensive. Except the actual school name was Coons.

 

Why are you stating this like you know it for a fact?

 

I graduated from OHS. The actual team name is Cooney. It used to be Coons, but for obvious reasons, it was changed. "Cooney" is not offensive (though it is dumb), since it's used as a plural like "Magic" or "Lightning". "Coons", well...