CLEVELAND – Manager Terry Francona praised the Cleveland Indians for trying to “do the right thing” with an inevitable name change – and a necessary one.
On Friday, Francona praised the team’s decision to remove the name after 105 years, a change that follows months of internal discussions and encounters with numerous groups and will represent a new beginning for the American League team.
“I am proud that we are going to do something that is right,” Francona said in an interview by Zoom from his home in Arizona.
The team announced its decision on Monday, ending a lawsuit already begun before team owner Paul Dolan announced it in July – hours after the NFL’s Washington team dropped its controversial nickname – and said Major League team would thoroughly revised their name.
Dolan told The Associated Press in an interview that the team will continue to call itself Indians at least for the 2021 season and that he would not take a temporary name before choosing a new one. Dolan also told the AP that the Tribe, the team’s popular nickname and many fans’ favorite as the new name, is not an option and the club shuns all Native American connotations completely.
However, that doesn’t mean the team will distance themselves from its history.
“That’s not the idea,” Francona said. “I’m just thinking of just saying, ‘Hey, we’ve always done it this way, so we’ll keep doing it.’ Wrong, if we had, Jackie Robinson might never have played baseball.
“No one tried to be disrespectful, but that’s no longer an adequate answer,” he added.