CSotD: The Stupids Step Up
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Kirk Walters notes the passing of Chief Wahoo, as the Cleveland Indians — with significant prodding from the Commissioner of Major League Baseball — put to rest their outdated, insulting mascot.
Well, sort of — they'll still sell Chief Wahoo gear. They just won't have him on their uniforms and other official stuff, which is certainly a start.
Kind of like no longer performing in black face, but still selling corks and matches in the lobby.
Predictably, the whiners — including a number of cartoonists — have emerged with the same truly stupid non-arguments we see every time this subject comes up.
The Prime Directive forbids me to share their vacuous commentary, but you won't have a problem finding it because it's all over the place.
It's a Whatabout festival, in which people either pretend not to understand the issue or honestly display their genuine foolishness.
So at the risk of mentioning my estranged alma mater twice in as many days, let's use the common whine, "Well, what about the Fighting Irish?"
Well, what about the Fighting Irish?
First of all, I stopped using "Mike" about a month into my freshman year, reverting to my high school nickname, the "Pete" that is inevitable for all Petersons. The reason was that, on the campus of the University of Notre Dame du lac, you would not want to turn your head every time someone says, "Hey Mike!"
Or "Hey Pat" or "Hey Terry" or "Hey Kevin."
The place is overrun with taigs, and they seem proud of the fact. Proud enough that, back in the 20s when sports writers referred to them as "The Westerners" and "The Plainsmen" and whatever other nicknames came to mind, the one they adopted was "The Fighting Irish."
And some wiseass always points it out when the coach, as in my day, is Armenian, or the quarterback is German. Though they don't balance their piercing wit by mentioning Terry Hanratty or Coley O'Brien, nor are they apt to mention coaches like Terry Brennan or Dan Devine.
I will add to this exposition of the obvious that Boston has a very large and significant Irish population, such that a team called "the Celtics" seems logical, and that Minnesota was settled in large part by Scandinavians, hence "the Vikings."
Granted, the land upon which the city of Cleveland now stands was once Indian territory, but if we count that, then all the teams should be called the Indians.
The Cleveland team, however, was known as the Spiders but (according to team lore) became known as the Indians because of Louis Sockalexis, a Penobscot who played for the team and is reportedly the first Indian in Major League Baseball, hence attracting a lot of attention, not all of it positive.
However, despite being a tremendously gifted athlete, Sockalexis was only in Cleveland, as the phrase goes, for a cup of coffee, though, had it actually been a cup of coffee, his career might have lasted longer: Alcoholism made him an unreliable teammate and robbed him of his skills, cutting his time in the Bigs tragically short.
Meanwhile, let's not underplay the exquisite sensitivities of the era:
His teammates included George "Nig" Cuppy, who was not one, and Charles "Chief" Zimmer, who wasn't what that sounds like, either, just what it looks like.
Because that's how nicknames were assigned.
By comparison, Charles "Chief" Bender was, indeed, an Ojibwe who made the Hall of Fame with a career that only trailed Sockalexis by a half dozen years, so it was not impossible to be an Indian in the Major Leagues, nor did Bender's far more significant presence compel any teams to change their names.
Nor, I might note, did the Dodgers change their name when they signed Jackie Robinson.
More to the point, while Minnesota hanged a whole lot of Indians, I never heard of them going after the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, nor do I recall anyone in Southie objecting to Irish kids being in their schools.
It seems obvious — screamingly obvious — that it's okay to adopt an ethnicity you share and revere, but perhaps it is not obvious at all, at least to those who are what my people call, in their quaint old Irish way, "a boonch of fooking eejits."
Meanwhile, the NFL still stands on a policy of Redskins now, Redskins tomorrow, Redskins forever.
Though not every sheltered, spoiled white brat is blind to the issues, as we see in today's Monty.
And speaking of brats
I got a laff out of Soup to Nutz today because it brought back a brief period during seventh grade, when I got into the habit of stepping off the bus and pelting it with a snowball as it pulled away.
Until a day in early spring when it was warm enough that one window — ONE tiny window — on that side of the bus was open, and sure enough.
Caught Margie LaPlante square in the head, and Margie was not only in high school but really pretty and part of a very large family, mostly male.
Fortunately, she also had enough of a sense of perspective and of humor to know I didn't — and most likely couldn't have — done it on purpose.
And not only did Margie know it, but the bus driver must have, too, because he didn't even slow down to yell at me.
Today, I'd have been tazed on the spot and hauled off in handcuffs for felonious assault upon a public conveyance.
No kidding: A couple of years ago, somebody let a rooster loose in the school overnight and, when they found him running up and down the halls the next morning, they called the cops.
Yes: The State Police had to come investigate a rooster.
Good thing they had some plastic ties, because their handcuffs wouldn't have fit him.
If they had responded in my days the way they do now, our school would have been empty by November and they'd have needed more tutors in Dannemora.
Which is not a town in dear old Ireland.
(See now, I can laff at this. You laff and I'll pop yez up the froat.)
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