I'm from Cleveland. We had the "Cleveland Indians".
Now we have the "Cleveland Guardians".
There was a period where they announced the name change coming up, but hadn't decided on a name.
I was like "PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not be the Cleveland Rockers".
But some people were calling for the Cleveland Spiders.
And I saw one person who wanted the "Cleveland Municipal Baseball Team". Or the Muni's for short.
I said "As much as I hate the Rockers, or the Spiders, the Cleveland Municipal Baseball Team might just be the most boring team name I've ever heard.
Me personally? I wanted the team to buy a local radio station. 100.7 WMMS. The Buzzard. They even have a kickass buzzard mascot that dates back to the 1970s. It's something that would be old, but also new. I'd be able to get behind replacing Chief Wahoo with this face. And 100.7 is already where they broadcast Indians/Guards games anyways. Could have rebranded as The Cleveland Buzzards. And since they own the radio station, their jersys/logos would have been local advertising for the radio station which plays rock.
Used to be a cool radio station, but like all other radio, iheartmedia swooped in, bought it, and stripped out all identity, stripped out the on site DJs, and replaced it all with a national playlist. Which plays the same songs, and the same commercials at the same times.
This used to be rock and roll, do cocaine on the air and rock out all night! Now it's corporate bullshit with a nostolgic logo preserving the hollowed out husk of a corpse of what used to be great radio.
......oh, right. We were talking about trump, and I went on a rant.
We have an AHL hockey team here in Cleveland. The Cleveland Monsters. Back in the 1990s, there was a different hockey team. The Cleveland Lumberjacks. And back in the 1930s-1970s (as well as a short lived reboot in 2003-2005) we had another AHL hockey team called the Cleveland Barons.
So in 2006, when they announced Cleveland would be getting an AHL hockey team, everybody said "BRING BACK THE LUMBERJACKS!!!" Well, a couple of problems there. The Lumberjacks were never part of the AHL. They were part of the (at the time) recently defunct IHL. Completely different league. So, you can't "bring back" the AHL Cleveland Lumberjacks, because they never existed.
Which is the case for the Cleveland Spiders. You can't bring back the American League Cleveland Spiders, because they were part of the American Assosiation. When AA folded, the Spiders moved to the National League, which at the time was it's own seperate league. The formation of what we know as the MLB didn't start until 1903, and the Spiders were defunct by 1899.
So working within the context of what was happening at the time, the American League and the National League were two different seperate competing leagues with no connection to each other at all. Kind of like how the UFL today is not in any way connected to the NFL. Except that the AL and NL were much closer in size and popularity than UFL and NFL.
So, you can't bring back the AL Cleveland Spiders. They never existed, and the Spiders never even existed in the MLB.
All that being said, I still think the Spiders is a stupid name, with a stupid logo. I'm not entirely opposed to the Guardians name, but I DO think their logos are just garbage. It should be the face of the statue that's across the street from the ballpark. The imagery makes itself. I've heard it's because they can't own the copyright on the image of the statues. So, my suggestion is, do what Disney did. Disney can't own the copyright on public domain works like Snow White or Pochohantas. So they make their own fictionalized cartoon version of it. They make a version they can copyright. Do that. Make a version that is unique to your baseball brand, but also recognizable so that tourists leaving the stadium can see that big ass statue, that you can even see from inside the ballpark, and say "Oooooh, the logo is based on that!". While at the same time, keep them out of court.
Yes. I have opinions on Cleveland Sports.