Monday, 8/11/97 Change of name should be in future of Redskins
Younger fans don’t see extent of insult to American Indians
The day of reckoning is near, but that isn’t important right now
… Did you know that there is one professional team out there
whose nickname immediately strikes up controversy? And no, it is
not the Major League Soccer’s Kansas City Wizards, who during the
inaugural season were called the Wiz. It is also not the NBA’s
Washington Bullets, whose management took a stance against violence
and also changed their nickname to the Washington Wizards. A
coincidence? Probably not. But if we investigate a little further,
we could run up a few more common examples. The controversy I speak
of regards the NFL’s Washington Redskins. American Indians today
are wrongly accusing such teams as the Atlanta Braves and the
Cleveland Indians of damaging the image of Indians across the
United States. Fact is, the Washington Redskins are using a
nickname considered by many as a derogatory slur intended to
infuriate American Indians. I am not saying that the Washington
Redskins promote this kind of message. In reality, most of "our
generation" is not even aware that "Redskin" is disrespectful. To
put it into perspective, imagine if expansion football went to Los
Angeles, Anaheim, Omaha and San Francisco. Then the respective
owners decide that they want to make headlines and nickname their
teams the L.A. Negroes, the Anaheim Wetbacks, the Omaha Rednecks
and the S.F. Queers. Needless to say, this will never happen
because of the negative impact that this would have in our
politically correct society. But if these new nicknames are unreal,
how did the "Redskins" ever come into existence? If the Washington
Wizards changed their nickname for fear of promoting violence, one
would think the Redskins, who (coincidentally or not) are also in
Washington, would soon join the age of political reason and give
some respect back to the American Indian community. * * * On a
totally unrelated note … When MLB realigns (note I did not say
if), tradition will go down the toilet – my condolences if this pun
was out of order for the Kansas City Wiz fans. Years and years of
American vs. National League statistical comparisons will be thrown
out when teams like Atlanta and Philadelphia become AL teams and
teams like Minnesota and Kansas City go to the NL. But maybe the
owners could be proved right and in 30 years the next generation of
kids will forget all about these massive changes … But my problem
with this whole realignment fiasco is based on two subjects: (a)
the DH rule: talk now exists of making the Designated Hitter
universal. There is also talk of keeping the DH in the AL and allow
the pitchers to bat in the NL. The problem with keeping things as
they are is that teams like Minnesota and Kansas City would lose
valuable hitters such as Paul Molitor and Chili Davis,
respectively, who are defensive liabilities. The MLB players’ union
would never allow a complete ban on the DH because it expands the
career of players such as the aforementioned Molitor and Davis.
Therefore we have a no-win situation, because making the DH
universal would do more damage than good to the sport’s already
tainted tradition … (b) the fact that teams will still move to
other cities in the future. The small market teams such as
Pittsburgh, Montreal and Milwaukee may need to move to other
cities. When they move, all of this geographical realignment will
once again have to take place. Owners are considering major
realignment because of all the traveling that teams must now do,
and since cross-town rivals do not face each other nearly enough
times each year with the inter-league play. A perfect example is
the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants rivalry. Fans in the Bay
Area will be excited as these two teams will now face each other
about 14 times a season instead of five. But the Bay Area is a
one-team market. In the long run, two baseball franchises will not
co-exist in this environment since a new stadium is in the making.
Giants speculation is that the A’s will have to move in a few
years. So if the A’s move to, let’s say Washington, they may become
the Washington Republicans (sorry for the political slur – I guess
I did not learn from the Redskins). Now that the A’s are in
Washington, what does baseball do? Do they realign again because
the A’s moved from the West to the East and teams must travel more?
Do they leave things as they are and ruin the whole theme of
geographical rivalries? What I am trying to say is that although
realignment seems to be a good idea now, in hindsight chances are
that sooner or later the same problems that plague baseball today
will reappear in the future. Instead of bothering with all of these
massive changes to jump start baseball,perhaps the owners should
worry about preserving tradition and stopping teams from jumping
ship for new stadiums and more money … And with that, I humbly
wish you all good-bye. Vytas Mazeika Previous Daily Bruin Story:
Violent double standard must be eradicated from sports , 7/7/97