The Indians and Irony
January 11, 2008, 4:00 pmThe well-known Jacobs Field (aka The Jake or Midgemania), home to those pesky Cleveland Indians, will now be known as Progressive Field. Progressive Insurance, a Cleveland based auto-insurance company, and the Indians have made a 16-year deal ($3.6 million per), allowing the field to be renamed in relation to the company.
Now, in terms of irony (which is a hard word to use and I hope I’m using it correctly…), isn’t it sort of ironic that a baseball team wielding stereotypical images of native americans across their caps and shirts, will now be playing in Progressive Field?
The term “progressive” obviously stems from the word “progress” (moving forward, positive development and advancement) and the Indians are simply living in the past. During the playoffs (Yanks VS Indians), to see tons of Cleveland fans painted red and wearing feathery headdresses, while Joba Chamberlain stepped onto the field, seemed like an unsettling and strangely amusing hallucination.
Hell, while they’re at it, instead of selling the rights to their park and renaming the field, why not rename the team?
Legend has it that the team honored Louis Sockalexis when it assumed its current name in 1915. The spectacular Sockalexis, a Native American, had played in Cleveland 1897-99.
Proponents of the name acknowledged that the Cleveland Spiders of the National League had sometimes been informally called the “Indians” during Sockalexis’ short career there, a fact which merely reinforced the new name.
Move forward? Shouldn’t the Yankees do that first? The Yankees enjoy living in the past; more specifically, continuing to blame the series loss in the ‘07 ALDS on the midges (neglecting the fact that Fausto owned the Yankees with and without the pests in on his face). Good point though with the link between “Progressive Field” and the Indians logo too. I think there was more of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
lol. the yankees have moved forward. in fact, our ace has certainly moved forward after pitching terribly against the indians. but, how about that cc sabathia huh? he’s had a great 2 games to start off the year lol. don’t worry though, he’ll be on our team next year so you won’t have to worry about him for too long.
why not name their teams the honkies or white trash? sounds fitting to me.