“Bowl Picks–A Bad Year”

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The College Football Playoffs are set.  The rich get richer, the little guy gets nothing, and college football staggers to the finish line.

As expected, the elite of college football got into the 4-team playoffs, known as the Alabama Invitation.  The Crimson Tide will face Notre Dame in one semi final.  Clemson will meet Ohio State in the other semi final matchup.

You had a good season Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina, BYU, here are some crumbs for your team, but you won’t get the big pay day.

Tough choices to find teams, even sub-500 teams, who got bowl bids, when so many teams, USC-Washington and others opted out, deciding not to play an extra game, in an empty stadium, with a roster charred by Covid problems.

Here’s a look at the bowl matchups so far:

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College Football Playoff National Championship
College Football Playoff National Championship Presented by AT&T
Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, Florida)
Jan. 11: 8 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

College Football Playoff Semifinal at The Rose Bowl Game Presented by Capital One
No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 4 Notre Dame
AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas)
Jan. 1: 4 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl
No. 2 Clemson vs. No. 3 Ohio State
Mercedes-Benz Superdome (New Orleans)
Jan. 1: 8 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Bowl schedule
Dec. 21

Myrtle Beach Bowl
Appalachian State vs. North Texas
Brooks Stadium (Conway, South Carolina)
2:30 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 22

Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Tulane vs. Nevada
Albertsons Stadium (Boise, Idaho)
3:30 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl
UCF vs. BYU
FAU Stadium (Boca Raton, Florida)
7 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 23
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
Louisiana Tech vs. Georgia Southern
Mercedes-Benz Superdome (New Orleans)
3 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Montgomery Bowl
Memphis vs. Florida Atlantic
Cramton Bowl (Montgomery, Alabama)
7 p.m. on ESPN or ESPN2 and the ESPN App

Dec. 24

New Mexico Bowl
Hawai’i vs. Houston
Toyota Stadium (Frisco, Texas)
3:30 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 25

Camellia Bowl
Marshall vs. Buffalo
Cramton Bowl (Montgomery, Alabama)
2:30 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 26

Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl
South Carolina vs. UAB
Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida)
Noon on ABC and the ESPN App

Cure Bowl
Liberty vs. Coastal Carolina
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida)
Noon on ESPN and the ESPN App

SERVPRO First Responder Bowl
Louisiana vs. UTSA
Gerald J. Ford Stadium (Dallas)
3:30 p.m. on ABC and the ESPN App

LendingTree Bowl
Western Kentucky vs. Georgia State
Ladd-Peebles Stadium (Mobile, Alabama)
3:30 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl
Independence Stadium (Shreveport, Louisiana)
7 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 28

Military Bowl Presented by Perspecta
Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium (Annapolis, Maryland)
2:30 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 29

Cheez-It Bowl
Oklahoma State vs. Miami
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida)
5:30pm ET on ESPN and the ESPN app

Valero Alamo Bowl
Texas vs. Colorado
Alamodome (San Antonio)
9 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 30

Duke’s Mayo Bowl
Wake Forest vs. Wisconsin
Bank of America Stadium (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Noon on ESPN and the ESPN App

TransPerfect Music City Bowl
Iowa vs. Missouri
Nissan Stadium (Nashville, Tennessee)
4 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic
Oklahoma vs. Florida
AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas)
8 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Dec. 31
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl
Tulsa vs. Mississippi State
Amon G. Carter Stadium (Fort Worth, Texas)
Noon on ESPN and the ESPN App

Arizona Bowl
Ball State vs. San Jose State
Arizona Stadium (Tucson, Arizona)
2 p.m. on CBSSN

AutoZone Liberty Bowl
West Virginia vs. Tennessee
Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium (Memphis, Tennessee)
4 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Mercari Texas Bowl
Arkansas vs. TCU
NRG Stadium (Houston)
8 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Jan. 1
Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl

Cincinnati vs. Georgia
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta)
Noon on ESPN and the ESPN App

Vrbo Citrus Bowl
Auburn vs. Northwestern
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida)
1 p.m. on ABC and the ESPN App

Jan. 2

TaxSlayer Gator Bowl
NC State vs Kentucky
TIAA Bank Field (Jacksonville, Florida)
Noon on ESPN and the ESPN App

Outback Bowl
Ole Miss vs. Indiana
Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida)
12:30 p.m. on ABC and the ESPN App

PlayStation Fiesta Bowl
Oregon vs. Iowa State
State Farm Stadium (Glendale, Arizona)
4 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

Capital One Orange Bowl
Texas A&M vs. North Carolina
Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, Florida)

8 p.m. on ESPN and the ESPN App

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“Chargers-Raiders–Exciting-Excruciating”

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They had it won…made terrible play calls…and almost lost the game.  Both teams did.

The emotional mood swings in the fourth quarter were equal to being in an insane asylum.  It made you ask, why would you run that play?

In the end the Chargers beat the Raiders in overtime, though both tried to hand the game to the other team.

It was as good as you could see an offense play (Bolts).  It was as bad as you could see a defense play (Raiders).  It was atrocious special teams again.

Justin Herbert played and was the reason the Chargers won the game.  Derek Carr got hurt early and it hurt the Raiders in the loss.

Michael Badgley missed two makeable field goals, giving him 11-missed kicks on the season and can not be trusted via long distance.  .

Marcus Mariota’s (314Y) all purpose game off the bench was something for the Raiders to feel good about.

The Raiders horrid pass defense gave up 17-plays of 10-yards or more, and took some terrible pass interference penalties, and that was the reason they lost.

Herbert became the hero with his riverboat gambling deep passes down the field and then his grit on the goal-line on the final plays of the night..

Mariota flashed talent from the long ago past, running for 88-yards on option plays and nearly pulled the game off.

The Raiders garbage secondary killed them time and time again, either big plays or penalties.

But it was a nitemare for play callers.

The Raiders had a 19-play drive for a TD and seemed to have the game by the throat.

The Chargers tried read-option and wildcat runs that blew up in their face costing them key yards.

The Raiders, sand-blasting their way with the running game, pushing to a likely late game field goal, decided to throw a pass to a 3rd string wideout, that was picked off and nearly returned for a touchdown.

The Chargers, on their way to a likely game winning field goal, and running the ball, tried a rollout pass and took a brutal sack, forcing them beyond a solid field goal attempt.

Herbert was under pressure the entire 2nd half..taking the bad sack..9-hits..and 5-pressures.

But there he was at the end with two quarterback sneaks, and getting in with second effort on the second one for the game clinching TD.

The Raiders playoff hopes look done.  They need a total makeover on defense, from coordinator to a bunch of players in the secondary.

The Chargers get their second win in a row, and with lowly Denver coming in next week, a likely victory there, could mean Anthony Lynn gets to coach another season with the Bolts.

It was wild game, an ugly game, a game between two really troubled teams.

For all the greatness Jon Gruden is supposed to have, he can’t get this rag-tag team to win.  Greatness is not (7-7) and missing the playoffs again.  For all the struggles Anthony Lynn has as a head coach, he’s lucky he has Justin Herbert, otherwise he’d be (0-14)

Exciting-Excruciating.  Bolts win.  Raiders loss.

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“Negro Leagues Get Recognized–100 Years Too Late”

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Better late than never.

This year was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues in baseball.

The names ring familiar to fans, though we never saw the teams, and only have access to grainy black and white movies, old newspaper box scores, and Ken Burns documentary ‘Baseball’.

But the Commissioner’s office is now celebrating the accomplishments of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Indianapolis Clowns, Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, Homestead Grays and so many more, but announcing the Negro Leagues are now recognized as a Major League.

Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Buck O’Neil, Smokey Joe Williams and so many more, who rode buses, played games infront of black fans, will now have their statistics added to Baseball History and maybe even the Hall of Fame.

100-years too late, for virtually all those players are gone…but a retroactive move to salute their greatness.

An interesting Washington Post column on what just happened and what it means.

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For decades, baseball historians and fans have accepted it as gospel that Willie Mays collected 3,283 hits in his career, Bob Feller threw the only Opening Day no-hitter in baseball history and the top three batting averages of all time belonged to Ty Cobb (.366), Rogers Hornsby (.358) and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (.356). To suggest otherwise was to provoke a bar fight — or at the very least a peaceful consulting of Google.

But on Wednesday, in a monumental change for the sport, Major League Baseball announced it was elevating the 1920-48 Negro Leagues to major league status, a move that not only seeks to right a cosmic wrong that has shadowed the game for a century — the segregation of baseball that famously ended when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 — but also forces a wholesale recalibration of its record book.
The “long overdue recognition,” as MLB called it in a news release, will add the names of some 3,400 Negro Leaguers from seven distinct leagues in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, along with all their accumulated statistics, to its official records. That means Negro League stars such as Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston and James “Cool Papa” Bell — all of whom were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in the 1970s — will gain an additional designation denied to them during their lives: big leaguers.
Kevin B. Blackistone: Baseball is honoring the Negro Leagues. It needs to explain why they existed.
“The Negro Leagues was a major league,” Bell, who died in 1991, told Gannett News Service in 1987. “They wouldn’t let us play in the white leagues, and we [were] great ballplayers in the Negro Leagues, so how can you say we [weren’t] major league?”
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“All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s best players, innovations and triumphs against a backdrop of injustice,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in the statement. “We are now grateful to count the players of the Negro Leagues where they belong: as Major Leaguers within the official historical record.”
The move was the result of years of study by researchers from the Seamheads Negro League Database — who pored over newspaper clippings, scorebooks and other historical records to compile statistics — as well as research by the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., and other entities.
“In the minds of baseball fans worldwide,” Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Museum, said in a statement, “this serves as historical validation for those who had been shunned from the Major Leagues and had the foresight and courage to create their own league that helped change the game and our country too.”
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In effect, the move reverses the decision of MLB’s Special Baseball Records Committee — a five-person, all-White group commissioned in 1969 to codify the historical standards that define the major leagues — which bestowed big league status on six leagues (including the Union Association, which played its only season in 1884) but never even considered including the Negro Leagues.
“It is MLB’s view,” the league’s statement on Wednesday said, “that the Committee’s 1969 omission of the Negro Leagues from consideration was clearly an error that demands today’s designation.”
Wednesday’s announcement came near the end of a tumultuous year for MLB, in which, in addition to navigating a season amid a global pandemic, the sport, along with much of American society, grappled with significant issues regarding race and social justice. Teams and players sat out games this summer to protest police brutality, and earlier this week the Cleveland Indians announced plans to change their name after 105 years, following years of protests and pressure from Native American groups and others.
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“The issues of inclusion and exclusion that the commissioner addressed today are really dramatic ones,” John Thorn, MLB’s official historian, said in a telephone interview. “We’re not merely focusing on stars like Gibson and Charleston but more than 3,400 men who seemingly had insignificant careers and who are now joined with their white peers in the record books. It’s big for a major institution [such as MLB] to admit publicly to a mistake and go about correcting it.”
Svrluga: Baseball is finally addressing its racist past, but its work can’t end there
As a practical matter, the change — once MLB and the Elias Sports Bureau conduct a review process to determine “the full scope of this designation’s ramifications on statistics and records” — is likely to upend segments of the sport’s cherished record book.
Mays, whose 3,283 career hits across a 22-year, Hall of Fame careerrank 12th on the all-time list, could gain as many as 17 extra hits from the 1948 season, which he spent with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League. (Because 10 of those 1948 hits came in the playoffs, Mays’s career total might gain only an additional seven, depending on the results of the review process.)
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Feller’s legendary Opening Day no-hitter in 1940 — long considered the only one of its kind in the sport’s history — will share that designation with Leon Day of the Negro National League’s Newark Eagles, who no-hit the Philadelphia Stars on Opening Day in 1946.
“He would have loved this. It would have meant the world to him,” Day’s widow, Geraldine, said in a telephone interview from her home in Catonsville, Md. Leon Day died in 1995 at age 78, four months before his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Since Negro League seasons were typically much shorter than MLB seasons, the sport’s career records for “counting” stats — such as Barry Bonds’s 762 home runs and Pete Rose’s 4,256 hits — are largely safe, if only because top Negro Leaguers are credited with having played between 1,000 and 1,600 career games, as opposed to, say, Rose’s 3,562.
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For example, Gibson, who spent much of his career in Washington playing for the Homestead Grays and is considered the Negro Leagues’ most prolific slugger, is credited on his Hall of Fame plaque with hitting “almost 800 home runs.” Many of them, however, were on barnstorming tours and are not part of the official record, as determined by the Seamheads researchers, who credit him with only 238 in Negro League play — still most among Negro leaguers.
The all-time MLB rankings for “rate” statistics, such as batting average, on the other hand, could see a wholesale rewriting. Gibson’s career batting average of .365, for example, would rank second only to Cobb’s .366 and — along with Jud Wilson’s .359, Charleston’s .350 and Turkey Stearns’s .348 — would push Babe Ruth’s .342 out of the top 10. Gibson’s career slugging percentage of .690 would edge out Ruth’s .6897 as the highest in major league history.
Single-season stats also would be affected, with Gibson’s .441 batting average in 1943 supplanting Hugh Duffy’s .440 for the 1897 Boston Beaneaters of the National League as the highest in a single season in history. Ted Williams, who hit .406 for the Boston Red Sox in 1941, would lose his status as the last player to hit .400 in a single season.
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Although most Negro League seasons featured between 50 and 70 games, MLB’s treatment of its own 2020 records as legitimate — despite playing a season that lasted just 60 games because of the coronavirus pandemic — proved to be illustrative in demonstrating the legitimacy of Negro League stats.
MLB is expected to use the same criteria to determine eligibility for single-season records as it currently uses for batting titles, with players required to have amassed 3.1 plate appearances per team game to qualify. A similar factor, one inning pitched per team game, is used for pitchers to determine eligibility for the ERA title.
Day’s .705 career winning percentage as a pitcher could put him in the top 10 all-time in the major leagues, just ahead of current Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Clayton Kershaw (.697).
“He didn’t talk much about himself or how good he was,” Day’s widow, Geraldine, said. “Other people talked about him like that, but he didn’t think words mattered that much. But he would be proud of this.”

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“Padres-Waiting & Watching”

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The month of December has reached the midway point of the calendar.

A month removed from the World Series.  No winter meetings, no blockbuster trades, no big free agent signings.

And no sign either as to what the next baseball season is going to look like.

MLB and the Union are having dialogue about a trimmed back 2021 season with the reality the pandemic is worse now than it has ever been.

Owners are talking about not opening spring training cmaps in February.  The season won’t start the last week of March.  Now they are dropping hints it might not start till May.

That would mean spring training camps would be padlocked till April.  And who knows what the fallout for the minor leagues, who did not play last year, might be like this year too.

If owners are mumbling about 80-game seasons, or 120-game seasons, then no business is going to take place for awhile yet.

Owners say they want players and their staffs to recevie vacccines before they report to the Cactus League or the Grapefruit Circuit.

No one knows whether there will be fans in the stands to start the season, though Dr. Anthony Fauci, the MVP of infectious disease research, says he does not envision fans in stadiums till late summer.

That means another 3M loss in likely local revenues for the Padres and every other team.  Does that mean another 100M plus loss for the Padres and so many other teams for a second year in a row.

And because of all that uncertainty about start times, camps, medical situations, it means free agency is stalled too.

Who knows where Trevor Bauer or George Springer winds up, and more importantly, who knows for how much money.

The Padres are covered from a roster standpoint, because they have so many good young pitchers knocking at the big league door.  They don’t have to go into the market place looking for talent.

We started the off season with 147–free agents.  Then when players started getting non-tendered, the free agent list grew to 197-players, without contracts, without teams, and without knowledge of where they might be hitting home runs this year.

A ton could wind up on 1-year short contracts, and a hope they re-enter the free agent market next year.

Interesting to see if the Padres can buy-low on someone on a one year deal that makes a difference in the standings.

The clock is ticking on one player they were to bid on…Japanese free agent right-hander Tomo Sugano of the Yomiuri Giants, who is (31Y), and has a (101-50) career record in that country.  The 30-day window has opened for a team to sign him.. He’s a middle of the rotation guy and might fit their needs and their budget.

The Masahiro Tanaka-Yankees situation bears watching, as New York has yet to make an offer to retain him, despite a (78-46) career record, but his price tag might be a bit too high.

Are there trades in the offing, sure, but the Padres don’t seem interested in giving up anymore of their young arms, considering they have already dealt away Cal Quantrill and Eric Later in past deals.

And while the business paralysis of the game continues, so does the possible structure of the game stay set in cement.

No idea on the DH-rule for next year, though it seems a positive addition to the game.  No idea on expanded playoffs and more revenue for clubs, though that seems a go-to idea to help the players and owners wipe out the 3B in losses from last year.

Mid-December, and I don’t think the Hot Stove League lamp ever got lit.  And I doubt we can hear anyone say ‘pitchers and catchers’ report.

AJ Preller and Jayce Tingler…like you and me…waiting to see what happens next in baseball’s battle with the virus and then its union.

Waiting and watching.

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“My Old Time Favorite-Needs New Name”

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I cannot believe they are doing it again, after doing what they did a year ago.

I grew hating the New York Yankees.  I was the only kid I knew living on Long Island that hated the Yankees.

You know the Yankees of the Bronx Bomber era.  The M&M Boys, Mantle and Maris, Whitey and Yogi, and of course Casey.

I was a Cleveland Indians fan, probably because they were a very good 2nd place team, all those years..  Or maybe it was because of the logo, Chief Wahoo.

In the era of being politically correct, everything has to change.  Nicknames, monuments, statues, names of churches, boulevards, universities and more.

First they took away the Chief Wahoo brand, the smiling Indian.  I remember growing up seeing a huge neon light atop old Municipal Stadium,  It was the smiling face of the Chief, looking down onto Lakeshore Drive.

Now they have taken away the name of the team, “Indians”, the one that has been part of the heart-and-soul of Cleveland fans since 1915.

Now we see where ownership takes the team’s name.  A full year to decide, indicating they will launch the 2022 season with a new name.

Why did this happen?  Where do they go next?

The New York Times takes a look:

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Baseball teams have been named for animals, local landmarks and a brand of handgun. Several of them have been identified by the color of their socks. There is one named after a mountain range and another that references dodging the trolleys of a city the team left more than 60 years ago.

The strangest name in baseball history might be for the team that was named after its best player. That team — the Cleveland Naps — was forced to adopt a new name when Napoleon Lajoie left the club after the 1914 season. With the help of local sportswriters, the team became the Cleveland Indians.

After years of criticism, Cleveland has agreed to drop the name, which many view as racist, and will begin searching for a new one — a process that has happened relatively few times since team names became standardized in the early part of the 20th century. Name changes, it should be noted, can take a while to get right, as evidenced by the N.F.L.’s Washington Football Team, which is temporarily going with a generic designation after dropping its own racist name.

How Cleveland and Washington navigate their changes could provide a blueprint for other teams as the push to eliminate offensive names in sports grows stronger. It could eventually affect teams like the Atlanta Braves and the N.F.L.’s Kansas City Chiefs, and perhaps even less obvious examples, like the N.B.A.’s Golden State Warriors.
Cleveland Makes Name Removal Official, Saying It Is ‘Moving Forward’
Dec. 14, 2020

Cleveland’s Baseball Team Will Drop Its Indians Team Name
Dec. 13, 2020

Much of the early enthusiasm in Cleveland’s search for a name has focused on having the club renamed the Spiders, the current favorite, according to multiple oddsmakers. While that name has some baseball history in Cleveland — not particularly good history, but history — it has no connection to the current Cleveland club. The Spiders were a National League team from 1889 to 1899. They lost the 1892 championship to Boston and, when last seen, set a mark for baseball futility by going 20-134 before disbanding. A minor league club also used the name in 1915 before bolting for greener pastures in Toledo.

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The current Cleveland team, on the other hand, was one of the American League’s original franchises in 1901. If the club wanted to reference a name of the team’s past, it would have four to choose from: the Blues, the Bronchos (also spelled “Broncos”), the Molly Maguires and the aforementioned Naps.

It might be hard to imagine a team renaming itself the Boston Big Papis or the Los Angeles Trouts, but that was exactly what Cleveland did for Lajoie’s first full season with the club in 1903. Lajoie, a Hall of Famer regarded as one of the best hitters in major league history, largely justified the unusual honor. He hit .339 in 13 seasons with the club, collecting multiple batting titles. He is still the franchise’s career leader in wins above replacement.

The Naps nickname stuck around even after a 1912 effort by the team to change its official designation to the Molly Maguires — itself an unusual sports name, as it referenced a group of Irish labor rights activists. But after a last-place finish in 1914, Lajoie demanded a trade and was sent back to his previous club, the Philadelphia Athletics, necessitating a name change for Cleveland.
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Major League Baseball hasn’t had a team change its name entirely without moving cities since the 1965 season when the Houston Colt .45s became the Houston Astros. Credit…Houston Colt .45s, via Associated Press
The team’s search for a new name has often been credited to a newspaper contest, though academic studies have made the claim of a fan contest or a reference to Louis Sockalexis (a Native American player for the Spiders) to be specious. In reality, a committee that consisted of local sportswriters and team representatives decided on the name, with some Cleveland newspapers reporting at the time that it was temporary. It stuck.

Cleveland’s being in the market for one again also shines a light on how rarely a name change happens, at least in baseball. Recent name changes have included the Tampa Bay Rays dropping “Devil” from their name in 2008, and the Expos being renamed the Nationals after a move to Washington in 2005.

To find an established team that changed its name without changing cities, you would have to go back to the 1965 season, when the Houston Colt .45s became the Houston Astros. It would be easy to assume it was the association with a firearm that inspired the change — similar to Washington’s N.B.A. franchise changing its name from the Bullets to the Wizards — but the change to the Astros appeared to be more about capitalizing on the space craze at the time, and honoring the team’s exciting new domed stadium, while also addressing the fact that the Colt firearms company had objected to the team’s souvenirs.

“We think it is in keeping with the situation in which we are the space capital of the world,” Roy Hofheinz, the club’s president at the time, had said. “The name was taken from the stars and indicates we are on the ascendancy.”

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The Washington Football Team has taken some criticism for the generic name it adopted this season after dropping a racist name.Credit…Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

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Washington’s N.B.A. team changed from the Bullets to the Wizards before the 1997-98 season. Many feel the change was rushed.Credit…Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
In all, baseball will be left with 11 teams playing under their original name as major league teams, including the Detroit Tigers, who began play in the A.L. in 1901 and are the longest-serving major league team that has never had any other home city or nickname. (The Chicago White Sox, who began play in the A.L. the same year, were briefly known as the Chicago White Stockings.) Each of the other 19 active teams has had at least one change. One of the more interesting reasons for a change belongs to the Cincinnati Reds, who went by the Redlegs in the 1950s to distance themselves from any connection to communism.

There is no timeline for when Cleveland will rename its team. The Indians name will be used in 2021, allowing the franchise time to avoid rushing into an unpopular name change, like the one done by the N.B.A.’s Wizards.

Be it Spiders, Blues, Bronchos, Molly Maguires or some other name, the team has an opportunity to make a positive out of something that has been painful for many years. And while a return to the Naps is highly unlikely, the team could always nod to it by naming itself after one of the team’s many stars, like Jose Ramirez or Shane Bieber.
The Cleveland Biebers? Probably not.