My late dad and I used to go back and forth by US MAIL, sharing thoughts on whatever had become the latest hot topic symbol of contested political incorrectness in everyday life. It didn’t take us long to come around to sports team mascots since that jumped up quickly as a hot button for a lot of easily offended folks. We also took a little perverse pride in belonging to the only ethnic group in the world that wasn’t offended by Notre Dame University’s long ago decision to bless their athletic teams with the “Fightin’ Irish” moniker. Can you think of a single other ethnic group that would let this pugilistic assignation float on safe waters in today’s social climate?
Native Americans quickly jumped on the “we’re offended” soap box and who could blame them for the NFL’s “Redskins?” That one even gets to me, but not so “Seminoles” or just plain “Indians.” Of course, we still have Redskins and Seminoles today, but far fewer Indians. Stanford University even went so far as a switch from all the Indians of this continent to a single Cardinal as its new mascot choice. I’ve always assumed that brainy Stanford simply jumped to the logical conclusion that a single bird, and not the whole species, would not have much of an oppositional constiuency,
Here are my current thoughts on politically incorrect major league baseball team nicknames in 2010 and the groups that each offends. Let’s start with the most obvious and work our way out from there:
(1) Atlanta Braves & (2) Cleveland Indians: Native American groups of all descriptions;
(3) St. Louis Cardinals & (4) San Diego Padres: Non-Catholic Believers & Athiests;
,(5) Cincinnati Reds: Capitalists Opposed to Communism in All Forms & FOX News;
(6) Los Angeles Angels: Believers who don’t believe in Angels & atheists;
(7) Houston Astros: Flat Earth Society, Creationists, & Foes of the Big Bang Theory;
(8) Colorado Rockies: Flat Earth Society;
(9) Washington Nationals: The America Without Borders Immigration Movement;
(10) Milwaukee Brewers: The American Carrie Nation Temperance Movement;
(11) Chicago Cubs, (12) Philadelphia Phillies, (13) Florida Marlins, (14) Arizona Diamondbacks, (15) Toronto Blue Jays, (16) Baltimore Orioles, and (17) Detroit Tigers: PETA & the ASPCA;
(18) Texas Rangers: One Group – The State of Texas Cattle Rustling and State Insurance Board;
(19) Kansas City Royals: The American Commoner and Everyday Average Joe Society;
(20) San Francisco Giants: Society for Equally Anonymous Treatment of Vertically Enhanced Americans;
(21) Minnesota Twins: Planned Parenthood & the Zero Population Growth Group;
(22) New York Yankees & (23) New York Mets: East Coast Society for the Protection of Urban Residents Living Between the Hudson & East rivers from Prejudicial Attitudes that May Otherwise Condemn Them, One and All, as Damn Whatchamacallits;
(24) Boston Red Sox & (25) Chicago White Sox: American Open Toe Sandal Manufacturers;
(26) Pittsburgh Pirates: Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean movie copyright group because of the team’s failure to live up to their name over the past two decades; the movie people fear that the Pittsburgh version is giving pirates everywhere a bad name;
(27) Los Angeles Dodgers: The FBI and the IRS. Federal officials clam that Dodger players and Dodger fans are prone to avoid registrations for the draft and miss timely payment of federal taxes due;
(28) Oakland Athletics: United Couch Potato League;
(29) Tampa Bay Rays: The American Dermatology Society; and,
(30) Seattle Mariners: How could anyone be offended by anything that floats, especially if it’s a sea cruise or simply a plain old good idea? If you have anything against Mariners – or if you are politically offended by any of our current MLB team nicknames for reasons we may have missed above, let us hear your own objections in the comment section that follows this subject.
Meanwhile, have a politically correct hump day, everybody!
Whoops! Can I say hump day?
The Pecan Park Eagle 
July 28, 2010 at 1:43 pm |
Bill: Regarding yesterday’s posting on the Houston Buffs, I would like to advise your readers that Allan Barra, the sports coloumnist for the Wall Street Journal, has written a book entitled, “Rickwood Field”. Rickwood Field is the long-time home of Birmingham minor league baseball, and he devotes a chapter to the 1931 Dixie Series encounter between Birmingham and the Buffs, especially the final game in which Dizzy Dean was defeated.
For those of a more metaphysical bent, the “First Things” journal has an article, which can be read on the net, entitled “A Perfect Game” ,which plumbs the mysteries and miseries of baseball.
July 28, 2010 at 7:50 pm |
The Stanford Cardinal refers to a color, not a bird, actually. Still odd.
July 28, 2010 at 10:57 pm |
Thanks. Mike! Somewhere is the murky past I had been exposed to that fact and then dispossessed of it by a selective memory. To choose “Cardinal the color” is odd, indeed, but sensible too in view of the reasons that Stanford made the change from “Indians” in the first place, What better way to escape controversy than to go from the most inflammatory to the most innocuous. i.e., “color me red, color conflict gone.” – Right? – Bill McCurdy
July 29, 2020 at 2:36 am |
Hey the Mariners are offensive to people with Aquagenic Urticaria; it’s a little known allergy that causes hives when the person comes in contact with water. 🙂