Major League Baseball Adopts NBA Marketing Strategy

The increasingly angry tail continues to wag the totally wimpy dog: This time in Cleveland, where the Cleveland Indians baseball team will now be known as the Cleveland Guardians.

This move abandons a nickname the team has used since 1915 and follows the banishment of Chief Wahoo as the mascot.

If the organization had held a vote of season ticket holders — fans with a stake in the team and a financial commitment — and they wanted a new nickname, then fine. That’s a decision by people with a link to the team.

Only that’s not what happened here.

The organization and the suits at MLB headquarters surrendered to a noisy bunch of professional grievance mongers whose profession is anger. The team’s moral exhibitionism comes at the expense of fans who like the name Indians and didn’t think a change is necessary.

The NBA has tried this Woker–Than–Thou marketing and has the collapsed broadcast ratings to show for it. How long will real baseball fans allow themselves to be taken for granted?

Then there is the name ‘Guardians.’ At first, we thought the selection had something to do with the Biden administration, since after his most recent Town Hall on CNN it’s obvious that Joe needs some sort of caretaker or guardian.

But that’s not the case.

The namesake ‘Guardians’ are two art deco reliefs carved into the Hope Bridge that spans the Cuyahoga River.

The images aren’t depicting a human, a god, or even a politician. The two stiff representations are supposed to be the Guardians of the traffic that passes between the statues on the bridge.

In our view, the average bollard does more for traffic than the ‘Guardians.’

If managing traffic is the idea we would have suggested the Gates of Argonath from the Fellowship of the Ring. At least those statues are gesturing in one direction.

This anodyne, boring choice just reeks of focus group testing. A visit with almost any Cleveland librarian over the age of 50 would have given the naming task force plenty of good ideas. Some examples follow.

Let’s begin with the Cleveland Hazards.

This takes the middle name of Capt. Oliver Hazard Perry whose flotilla won the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812 and saved the city from the British.

Or how about the Cleveland Conductors to commemorate the city’s role as a center of abolitionist sentiment prior to the Civil War and its being an important stop on the Underground Railroad? 

For that matter Cleveland Raiders would also be an apt choice, since seven Ohio men where part of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry.

Moving into the modern era, they could choose the Firefighters or the Burners since Cleveland is famous as the city where the Cuyahoga River caught fire — as immortalized in Randy Newman’s song ‘Burn On.”

Or finally, the Cleveland Rockers which incorporates three city references, The Drew Cary Show, its theme song ‘Cleveland Rocks’ and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame located there.

Instead, the play–it–safe, humorless automatons have stuck the fans with ‘Guardians’.

They have our sympathy.

Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.

Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.