It's release day for "The New Ballgame: The Not-So-Hidden-Forces Shaping Modern Baseball" I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Thanks @TriumphBooks for going on this journey with me. https://t.co/hWkVrqaQCC

Shameless self-promotion: This is my favorite column to write every year. It's the one where we talk about things in baseball that exist, but don't have names yet. @baseballpro https://t.co/LsWc0tipVJ

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It will always be my first fact.

Hoy @bpespanol: Participa en todos los juegos del bullpen, por @pizzacutter4, traducción de @Battfer. ¡Para leer todo nuestro contenido en español, ve a https://t.co/8GOkwFaiav!

Shameless self-promotion: What if we changed one a rule so fundamental to the game, they wrote a song about it? @baseballpro https://t.co/f09oghLLcb

Hoy @bpespanol: ¿Quién tiene el control?—segunda parte, por @pizzacutter4, traducción de @chilango2. ¡Para leer todo nuestro contenido en español, ve a https://t.co/8GOkwF9KkX!

Shameless self-promotion: Is MLB making changes to the game to make it better or to keep it the same as it used to be. There's a difference and it's important. @baseballpro https://t.co/w4kPpPUnLT

Possibly direct origin for the Cleveland Indians name, from 1896: Native Americans on the Public Square during the city's centennial celebration. I agree: forget Sockalexis as the inspiration. @pizzacutter4

@pizzacutter4 1/2 The NY Mets of 1886 were called, after the owner, “Wiman’s Indians.” His Staten Island Amusement Company leased the ball grounds for lacrosse games, including those played by the St. Regis Indians; the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show also played on those grounds. (In mid-1887...

73/ It never was. What developed was a fan culture of Chief Wahoo and fans wearing red face and bad stereotype puns and "teepees and tomahawks." I grew up with it. I participated in it. I am left only with the regret that I didn't realize my error sooner. /fin

72/ I believe that even a bad origin story can be redeemed. Whether they took the name knowing full well what Sockalexis went through or whether it was just a cynical cash grab, the name could have become a way to bring legitimate honor to Sockalexis and Native Americans.

71/ The team dropped the Chief Wahoo logo after the 2018 season. They banned "red face" costumes before the 2021 season and then changed the name after the 2021 season.

70/ The team has been backing off the story since 2000. https://t.co/m7FvG96jGT In its 2024 media guide (p. 8), the team mentions Sockalexis, but suggests the popularity of the Miracle Braves may have been "another factor." https://t.co/GijuzazDO8

69/ In 2006, the team commissioned a plaque in honor of Sockalexis to hang in the Heritage Park section of Jacobs/Progressive Field, proclaiming that the team name had been "inspired by" Sockalexis.

68/ Sockalexis was the focus of racist abuse. The name didn't honor his performance; it was a poke at his race. He was a flash in the pan. He was not a fixture in Cleveland culture. The name was picked hastily and there's no evidence that anyone was even thinking of Sockalexis.

67/ And it was a pleasant myth. As some Native Americans started to ask uncomfortable questions about the Chief Wahoo logo and the "teepees and tomahawks" scoreboard graphics, fans could point to the idea that it was meant as an honor to Sockalexis. Except that wasn't true.

66/ The newspaper record shows that references to the myth surged in the late 1970s and into the 1990s. It became the stuff of space-filling "Did You Know?" factoids.

65/ After years of no one directly associating the name with Sockalexis, the myth seems to have been pieced together after the fact. And in an age where you had to go look up library archives of newspapers, it was hard to chase down the truth.

64/ The Sockalexis story was making the rounds. As time got further away from the 1897, it became easier to smooth over the edges of the real story. There was a Native American who played in Cleveland, the team needed a name, they picked "Indians." It must have been an honor?

63/ In 1978, the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners proclaimed "Louis Sockalexis Day" going so far as to write to the Penobscot Nation asking them to develop "another Sockalexis."