Cleveland Indians

The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since 1994 they have played in Jacobs Field. more...

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The "Indians" name originates from a public contest to decide a new name. In reference to the Boston Braves, (now the Atlanta Braves), the public chose "the Indians". They are nicknamed "the Tribe" and "the Wahoos". The latter is a reference to the mascot which appears in the team's logos, Chief Wahoo.

One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Cleveland in 1901. Then the Cleveland Blues, the team played in League Park until moving to historic Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1932. They have an all-time franchise record of 8,075-7,711 (.512). The Indians are the current American League Central Champions.

Franchise history

The Indians Nickname

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 1897-1899.

On the contrary, when the "Naps" sent longtime leader Napoleon Lajoie to the Philadelphia Athletics at the end of the 1914 season, owner Charles Somers asked the local newspapers to come up with a new name for the team. They chose "Indians" as a play on the name of the Boston Braves, then known as the "Miracle Braves" after going from last place on July 4 to a sweep in the 1914 World Series. 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.

In any case, the name stuck. And 34 years later, the Indians went on to defeat that same Braves franchise, 4 games to 2, in the 1948 World Series -- after first winning a one game playoff against Boston's other team, the Red Sox. The victory over the Braves was the franchise's second of two World Series titles; the Tribe had also won the 1920 World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Robins 5 games to 2.

The club nickname and its cartoon logo have been criticized for perpetuating Native American stereotypes, and protests have arisen from time to time. More can be read about this issue here: Native American mascot controversy. In 1997, during the team's most recent World Series, three Native American protesters were arrested, but later acquitted.

Forest City club

Open professional baseball began in Cleveland during the 1869 season and one team was hired on salary for 1870, as in several other cities following the success of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first fully professional team. That leading Cleveland baseball club was the Forest City, a nickname of the city itself. In the newspapers before and after 1870, the team was often called the Forest Citys, in the same generic way that the team from Chicago was sometimes called The Chicagos. The Forest City club was formed about 1865, when baseball club organization and "national" association membership boomed following the Civil War.

Read more at Wikipedia.org