Chief Wahoo Shrinking?

[Blue Falcon]

The logo isn't shrinking...the players' head are getting larger due to all the steroids. (for reference see: Bonds, Barry)

[illwauk]

Just get rid of Cheif Wahoo already!!!

PC reasons aside, it looks too damned cartoonish for a Major League team. MLB teams should have stylized letters of some sort and C is just too easy of a letter to work with for them not to go that route.

[HatManTC]

Just get rid of Cheif Wahoo already!!!

PC reasons aside, it looks too damned cartoonish for a Major League team. MLB teams should have stylized letters of some sort and C is just too easy of a letter to work with for them not to go that route.

that is the worst idea ever. why is everyone so dead set on making the MLB look so bland. I think out of 64 hats or so only 3 have just a logo on them. but then I forget this board is chalk full of posters that think color alternates are a terrible idea and MLb teams should only wear white and grey unis.

[illwauk]

Just get rid of Cheif Wahoo already!!!

PC reasons aside, it looks too damned cartoonish for a Major League team. MLB teams should have stylized letters of some sort and C is just too easy of a letter to work with for them not to go that route.

that is the worst idea ever. why is everyone so dead set on making the MLB look so bland. I think out of 64 hats or so only 3 have just a logo on them. but then I forget this board is chalk full of posters that think color alternates are a terrible idea and MLb teams should only wear white and grey unis.

Acutally, you're talking to someone who loves powder blue roads (depending on the team) and whose favorite logo of all time is the notorious ball in glove. I just never cared for Chief Wahoo because I think it's a poor design (on top of the obvious racial connotations... being that my mother is half Menomonee).

[BallWonk]

Acutally, you're talking to someone who loves powder blue roads (depending on the team) and whose favorite logo of all time is the notorious ball in glove. I just never cared for Chief Wahoo because I think it's a poor design (on top of the obvious racial connotations... being that my mother is half Menomonee).

I'm with Ilwauk. Two points are simply incontrovertible here:

1. Chief Wahoo is a racist cartoon.

2. Pretty much nobody intends to communicate anti-Indian bigotry by displaying Chief Wahoo.

I mean, can you imagine any parent allowing her child to go to school wearing a cap or a shirt with the equivalent non-Indian racist caricature on it? A real Sambo-faced, big-lipped, nappy-headed negro, or a bucktoothed, slanty-eyed oriental, or what have you? Absolutely not. No decent person would do such a thing, but Chief Wahoo gets an exception. Which isn't necessarily the worst thing; we have all kinds of hypocritical double-standards in polite society, and quite often hypocrisy is better than the alternative. But to deny that Chief Wahoo is a racist cartoon is to deny that this is too:

The difference being that it is almost inconceivable that any non-bigot would actually wear a Sambo head on his person.

But Ilwauk seconds an important line of thought that is very much open to productive debate regarding the design quality of Chief Wahoo. Personally, I think it's a terrific cap design, but only if it's used in a maximally over-the-top manner. The giant Chief Wahoo of yore ("yore" extends to the early 1990s, right?) was great precisely because its exceptionally large size displayed a degree of institutional self-depreciation. Combined with the overall generic crappiness of Cleveland's uniforms at the time, the giant Chief Wahoo always looked to me like the team was using it in fun, sort of saying, "Yeah, yeah, we know, but this is the best logo we've got, and if it makes us look like clowns, then fine, this is a game and we're here to have fun, so screw it, let's play ball." Something along those lines.

But when the team shrunk Chief Wahoo to normal cap-logo size (and then outlined it in freakin' silver!) it communicated that it was taking the logo Very Seriously. As currently proportioned, Cleveland's caps send a message more like, "Chief Wahoo is a sacred insignia, like Detroit's D or New York's Tiffany NY, and you will respect our authority -- now pay us your money and sit your ass down."

My personal wish has always been to see Chief Wahoo retired from the uniforms in favor of something along these lines:

Only, you know, made with actual design skill.

That, or expand Chief Wahoo back to his former absurdly large size, with the feather curving over the top of the front panel, which to me shows a degree of irony that mitigates the logo's inherent social problem. There's just something defensive, almost passive-aggressive, about today's shrunken Chief Wahoo that tells me that the team is not so much having fun with an anachronistic logo but rather asserting a political position.

Anyway, the point is that use and context matter, and that I agree with Ilwauk that Cleveland could do much better than Chief Wahoo, from a pure design point of view, whatever one thinks of the politics of the logo. In the end, that's why I'm a fan of the NCAA's position: Regardless of the political and social implications, most of the NCAA's Indian-themed school mascots were examples of lazy design, so forcing the schools in question to change offered a chance for improved sports design. Now if only we could do the same for all the high school teams named after birds of prey ...

[The_Admiral]

You're on the money about it being much better when it was huge, as if they didn't care. My bottom line is that the hat from Major League can never die.

I mean, can you imagine any parent allowing her child to go to school wearing a cap or a shirt with the equivalent non-Indian racist caricature on it? A real Sambo-faced, big-lipped, nappy-headed negro, or a bucktoothed, slanty-eyed oriental, or what have you? Absolutely not. No decent person would do such a thing, but Chief Wahoo gets an exception.

I'm looking for a t-shirt with this album cover on it:

but that artwork could be miscontrued by overly-p.c. types, couldn't it? I just think it's an amazing album.

[hecticbro]

I think a lot of teams have gradually shrinking logos. It probably is a style thing.

[SabreGuy]

I think a lot of teams have gradually shrinking logos. It probably is a style thing.

Thank you, voice of logic. Stylistically, I can not STAND giant cap logos on 5950's. Toronto Blue Jays, I'm looking in your direction! The old, larger wahoo was just ridiculous. The new, understated one looks a whole lot better to me.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I'm looking for a t-shirt with this album cover on it:

but that artwork could be miscontrued by overly-p.c. types, couldn't it? I just think it's an amazing album.

And I want the six-disc Complete On the Corner Sessions for less than $100, but we can't always get what we want, can we?

By the way, I think Sambo and the classic art grazing Miles Davis' albums at those times are completely different. Whereas Sambo is meant to ridicule blacks, Miles Davis was all about empowerment. Furthermore, although I wasn't alive in 1972, I would say that the On the Corner art is more indicative of cartoons of the time.

Anyway, BallWonk raises a good point, and it's certainly applicable to the Redskins name. It's embarrassing that we as a society tolerate that name and Chief Wahoo, and kind of weird to see the respective owners of the teams so entrenched in preserving that bigotry.

[The_Admiral]

And I want the six-disc Complete On the Corner Sessions for less than $100, but we can't always get what we want, can we?

You and me both. You're right about the idea behind the cover art, but my point was that not everyone would get it.

[Titanole]

I guess I have just never realized just what part of the logo is racist. What physical feature of Native Americans does it make fun of, their triangular-shaped eyes, their giant grins, their hair parted down the middle? I don't think I've ever seen an American Indian who looks remotely like Chief Wahoo. The only thing that plays to a stereotype is the fact that the face is red, but it's a cartoon logo so the color doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

[BlueSky]

and we get it some people don like CW because of PC reasons. please don't turn this in to a debate over the logo.

And, yes, the PC card has been played. Wonderful way of dismissing peoples' opinions without really needing to think about them.

Aside from not liking CW "because of PC reasons," I think it's just plain a bad logo. A big smiling guy as the symbol for an MLB team? Really?

Good point. Love the guy who said they won't get rid of it because it's been around since the 30's. That's a ridiculous argument for keeping a logo that's so blatantly racist that it's astounding the team has kept it this long.

So... the name is ok as long as there isn't a little smiling indian representing them? Fantastic point!!

Yes, as a matter of fact the Indians' name is fine. It's the disrespectful visual representation of Native Americans that's the problem.

Respectful representation:

Disrespectful representation:

Ironically, the Redskins have the opposite problem - their name is disrespectful while their logo is fine.

In contrast, the Braves and Seminoles have it right when it comes to correctly using a name and logo associated with people.

[ShinyHubCaps]

I agree. Additionally, the name "Redskins" could also be a reference to scalping (or so I've heard from the last time a discussion like this has come up).

[mantleisthebest7]

Wahoo is one of the most classic logos of any sport of all time. I think that Its possible one of the longest-living active sports logos today (even in the 70's, Wahoo was still used to a degree, so technically it counts). I hope that they don't ditch it. That's too cool of a logo to just get tossed. I dont care how big or small he is as long as he stays.

[AndrewPF]

I mean, can you imagine any parent allowing her child to go to school wearing a cap or a shirt with the equivalent non-Indian racist caricature on it? A real Sambo-faced, big-lipped, nappy-headed negro, or a bucktoothed, slanty-eyed oriental, or what have you? Absolutely not. No decent person would do such a thing, but Chief Wahoo gets an exception. Which isn't necessarily the worst thing; we have all kinds of hypocritical double-standards in polite society, and quite often hypocrisy is better than the alternative. But to deny that Chief Wahoo is a racist cartoon is to deny that this is too:

What about an Irishman decked out in green with his fists cocked and ready to brawl (like the Irish are stereotyped for doing)? I'm not crying rape and acting offended, but I'm wondering why it's any different. The Irish are an ethnic group, just as Native Americans, Blacks, or Asians are ethnic groups.

[HatManTC]

I mean, can you imagine any parent allowing her child to go to school wearing a cap or a shirt with the equivalent non-Indian racist caricature on it? A real Sambo-faced, big-lipped, nappy-headed negro, or a bucktoothed, slanty-eyed oriental, or what have you? Absolutely not. No decent person would do such a thing, but Chief Wahoo gets an exception. Which isn't necessarily the worst thing; we have all kinds of hypocritical double-standards in polite society, and quite often hypocrisy is better than the alternative. But to deny that Chief Wahoo is a racist cartoon is to deny that this is too:

What about an Irishman decked out in green with his fists cocked and ready to brawl (like the Irish are stereotyped for doing)? I'm not crying rape and acting offended, but I'm wondering why it's any different. The Irish are an ethnic group, just as Native Americans, Blacks, or Asians are ethnic groups.

is it because the irish are mainly white people, and white people cant be offend for being sterotyped because they are majority?

long live the chief.

[BallWonk]

is it because the irish are mainly white people, and white people cant be offend for being sterotyped because they are majority?

long live the chief.

No, it's because that logo was created by and for people primarily of Irish descent. Plus, there's no history of Sambo-like popular depictions of Irish people, as there is for black people and American Indians. The Irish side of my family likes to make a big deal about the whole "no-Irish-need-apply" period of American history, but the truth is that didn't last very long, and we were running most Eastern cities and urban political parties within a generation of the first big waves of immigration. Very little meaningful history of anti-Irish iconography in our culture.

That said, Notre Dame's little fighting Irish guy just isn't a very good logo. Like most ethnic-identity nicknames, most of which are Indian-related, the vague identity leads to lazy design. As an American of mostly Irish descent, Notre Dame is supposed to be "our" Harvard, only with winning sports teams, but thanks to the nickname we're stuck with a cartoon logo that looks like something ripped out of a bad 1920s newspaper comic strip. When I'm at Irish cultural events in the Midwest and East Coast, I see a lot of blue and gold ND merchandise; very little green cartoon man jackets and caps. Not, I suspect, because the little fighting guy offends anybody, but because it's just not a very attractive logo. Chief Wahoo is a much better design.

[AndrewPF]

but it still plays on a stereotype that all Irish people are violent and prone to fighting so why is it any different?

[BallWonk]

but it still plays on a stereotype that all Irish people are violent and prone to fighting so why is it any different?

First off, as an American of Irish descent, I've never actually encountered that stereotype, other than in the context of people complaining about the Notre Dame logo vis-a-vis whatever Native American-related logo they want to keep, so there's that. The stereotype I have encountered is that Irish people drink too much and are more prone to drunkenness and alcoholism, and also that Irish people can hold their liquor better than others, which would seem to be somewhat mutually exclusive stereotypes. But I digress. (And yet, pound for pound I can hold my liquor better than most of my friends, and always have been able to -- and a disproportionate number of the men on the Irish side of my family are alcoholics.)

Anyway, if I develop a reputation for being a brawler, and I run with it and call my team the Fighters, surely you could see how that might be different from me being a white guy and calling my team the Negroes and putting a Jim Crow-era black Sambo head on my uniform.

It should also make a difference that there really is no history of using any stereotype of Irish people as brawlers to oppress them or justify genocide against them. (My Irish ancestors suffered oppression and genocide for being Catholic, not for being brawlers.) There is a history of using images of the big-nosed savage to oppress and justify genocide against American Indians.

Has anyone ever actually seen Notre Dame's fisty little Irish guy logo worn by someone engaged in overt anti-Irish bigotry? I sure haven't. But I have seen Chief Wahoo used to express anti-Indian bigotry, and I have heard the word "Redskin" used like the n-word. And that right there makes a huge difference between the two cases. As soon as someone gets together an anti-Irish mob to insult me, and some of them are wearing fighting-guy Notre Dame caps to show what they think of me and my stinking Mick kind, then we can talk about Notre Dame's use of stereotypes.

[chakfu]

Acutally, you're talking to someone who loves powder blue roads (depending on the team) and whose favorite logo of all time is the notorious ball in glove. I just never cared for Chief Wahoo because I think it's a poor design (on top of the obvious racial connotations... being that my mother is half Menomonee).

Wait, wait wait, everyone knows that only overly-PC white people are concerned about things like that, right?

(More like the anti-PC crowd completely ignores any minority opinion and then comes to the conclusion that liberal whites are the only ones with liberal views...)