Let’S Say Toodle-Oo To Wahoo

I grew up with Chief Wahoo.

I love Chief Wahoo.

But I also know it’s time for Chief Wahoo to go.

Some of you will stop reading right here. Some of you will mumble about bleeding hearts, about Native Americans having better things to do than to worry about what logo is used by a baseball team.

They should worry about the lack of jobs on reservations, the lousy educational system and the poverty.

Chief Wahoo has no bearing on their lives, right?

Others will say you’re Irish and you don’t care that Notre Dame uses a silly leprechaun for a logo, so why should Native Americans care about Chief Wahoo?

None of that changes the fact that many Native Americans do care, and most of them consider it insulting. They think Chief Wahoo looks like a drunken Indian with the wild eyes and the big red nose.

How do I know this?

I’ve not taken a Gallup Poll, but I’ve traveled across several reservations in the West. I’ve talked to people who live there.

It comes down to this: Most don’t like it. I didn’t say all. I’ve even seen a few wearing Chief Wahoo caps. But the overwhelming majority object.

And it comes down to this: I’d be embarrassed to wear a Chief Wahoo cap in front of them, the same Chief Wahoo who was on so many of my clothes as a kid.

A few years ago, I stood at the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre in the Badlands of South Dakota. I stared at the church. The cemetery. The eerie rock formations and the empty land that somehow digs deep into your soul.

A lot of women and children were gunned down at that spot by jittery young soldiers. They were thrown into ditches and buried in cold, mass graves. It is one of the bleakest chapters in American history, and hardly the only one. You don’t have to be historian Stephen Ambrose or filmmaker Ken Burns to know the native people in this country got a raw deal.

And I’m not naive enough to think dumping Chief Wahoo will change the past or the future for members of the Pine Ridge Reservation.

But I do know that it bothers a lot of people, and it’s something the Cleveland Indians can fix.

Bob DiBiasio is the Tribe’s vice president of public relations. He has dealt with this issue for years.

He’s not a dummy.

He knows that this “is a very sensitive issue.”

He explains how the Indians “don’t make a mockery of Chief Wahoo. We don’t play tom-tom music. We don’t have the tomahawk chop. We don’t have any mascots wearing headdresses, and we don’t have anyone sitting in a teepee.”

He says the Indians will keep Chief Wahoo as a caricature, a cartoon character.

He adds that some Native American groups want the Indians to change Chief Wahoo. Others want to change the team nickname and Chief Wahoo. Some don’t care.

But the man whose opinion matters most is team owner Dick Jacobs.

“Mr. Jacobs has gone on record as saying as long as he owns the team, the nickname and the logo will remain,” said DiBiasio.

Let’s give Jacobs the benefit of the doubt and say he probably likes Chief Wahoo. He grew up in Akron. He probably had caps and shirts featuring Chief Wahoo.

But Jacobs also is a bottom-line businessman.

The Indians have just become a publicly traded company, whose stock has been in a deeper slump than Sandy Alomar.

Major league records reveal that the Indians sell more souvenirs than any other team except the Yankees, and most of those things feature Chief Wahoo.

It is not in the interest of Jacobs’ wallet to mess with the Chief.

But what about the issue of right and wrong?

Would Dick Jacobs or anyone else in power with the Tribe want to wear a Chief Wahoo cap on the Pine Ridge Reservation? Would you want to do it?

If not, then it’s time to change the logo.

If there is a certain queasiness, a lingering doubt about wearing the Chief in front of Native Americans, then there’s a problem with the Chief. The Chief Wahoo we see today is not the same Chief Wahoo that was around 80 years ago … or 50 years ago … or 25 years ago. The drawing and image has changed.

The Chief Wahoo we see today is not set in stone like the Ten Commandments.

What the Indians should do is put together a list of six top Native American artists whose work is recognized nationally. That can be done with a little homework.

Give them the major league guidelines for the size of the logo, then ask them to submit drawings. The team should pick the top three, then put it to a vote of the fans through area newspapers.

Four things would happen:

(1) There would be tremendous interest and debate about which logo was best. Fans (especially casual fans and kids) love to talk about this stuff.

(2) It would create a consumer run on items with the old Chief Wahoo, making more money for Jacobs.

(3) Items with the new logo would also be an economic boom to Jacobs. If the fans voted for the logo, they should buy it.

(4) The Indians will have done the right thing, and this is what matters the most.