Anyway, I'm trying to think of who comes out ahead on this. The heretofore-Indians organization benefits because they get to sell a lot of new merchandise. Communications and graphic design firms benefit because they get to handle a Major League Baseball team in a major market, which doesn't come along every year. Upper-middle-class liberals benefit because they can either buy Cleveland-team stuff they were too sensitive to buy before, or will buy it as non-fans to signal their endorsement of someone else's team killing off a tasteless name. So far, nothing for actual Indians -- seems like if we're not thinking about them as sports mascots, we're not thinking about them at all.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.