NEWSLETTER
The changeover happened this morning, fully and officially: the Cleveland Indians are no more, and the Cleveland Guardians are the baseball team you know in the AL Central. I feel like we’ve been talking about the coming name change for years (well, because we have), so it’s wild that today is the day.
The team’s website has changed, and they announced the official switch on Twitter:
The next chapter of Cleveland Baseball starts now. pic.twitter.com/6Y2ARviK5C
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) November 19, 2021
It’s gonna take a while to adjust to saying “The Cleveland Guardians” in an easily-flowing, easily-recognized way after decades of the old name. It’ll come in time, though, and while I wish they’d gone with Spiders, this is fine, too.
More on the name change, from the Guardians site:
This transition was spurred by the club’s desire to best represent its community. The decision to change its nickname was based upon the desire to be inclusive, which led to a survey of 40,000 fans as well as 140 hours of interviews with fans, community leaders and front-office personnel. After all of that, the organization decided upon “Guardians” as the name that best represented what the club learned from its community of fans.
When facing the 43-foot “Guardians of Traffic” that have stood tall for nearly 100 years on the Hope Memorial Bridge, Progressive Field looms in the background. The two are now forever connected — the sculptures that have served the city as beacons of progress now trickling over to the city’s baseball team.
“That’s one key component, the resiliency of people here in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, and the loyalty,” Cleveland’s president of business operations Brian Barren said in July, when the team name was first announced. “The loyalty to Cleveland, the loyalty to one another as teammates, as co-workers, as family and friends. Those all become part of what ‘Guardians’ really starts to evoke from an emotional standpoint.”
May Cleveland fans have a happy transition, and may they eventually win a World Series – theirs is now the longest drought in baseball – just never against the Cubs.
Cleveland Guardians gear is official live in the official MLB shop, so it's really real now: https://t.co/KuLKj2g2Z7 pic.twitter.com/1Whii5Jvix
— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) November 19, 2021
