All sports teams’ logos have their faults … and then there’s Chief Wahoo – Chicago Tribune
I always have thought the Cubs logo with the little bear inside the “C,” the one that seems to be a beast on the prowl, looks more like an orphan animal seeking its mother.
Other Cubs logos with frowning cubs or snarling cubs never really have represented fierceness because, after all, they are cubs. They tend to show confusion or curiosity.
Most commonly the Cubs use no animal at all to imply they are about to chew an opponent’s head off, like the one the Bears use, not that the Bears have been real bitey of late.
And we need not remind but will anyhow, the Bears were named for the Cubs instead of the other way around.
Of all the sports logos, from Stanford’s tree to the Richmond flying squirrel, the most gentle, outright goofy and nonetheless controversial logo is the one I used to doodle in the margins of my fifth-grade geography book, Chief Wahoo.
I could draw him from memory. Still can. Big teeth, happy eyes, stiff feather. It’s the same caricature the Cleveland team wears on its caps. Everyone knows Chief Wahoo.
It never occurred to me that some might find him offensive, might be indignant that a sports team would represent a noble culture as a cartoon. I just thought he was fun.
As a grown-up, of course, I have become much more aware of the damage that can be caused by such insensitivity, not that any examples come immediately to mind.
But I am certain that many do exist and that the baseball team from Cleveland is willingly demeaning and callously debasing a proud civilization and insulting all sorts of hallowed whatnots.
If we are going there, let us not forget where we came in. The Cubs, remember? How dare they misrepresent the honorable offspring of innocent wildlife as some sort of house pet, to be cuddled and loved, imagining that it is never going to grow into anything adult and dangerous.
Does any of this have anything to do with the epic battle for baseball’s championship, the fight for the spikey eyesore known as the Commissioner’s Trophy?
(The trophy, by the way, does not celebrate any single person nor offend any who might think they deserve to have naming rights. Stanley, Lombardi, O’Brien, Ryder, Heisman, surnames that go with other sports prizes — not counting ESPY, whoever that is — honor pioneers or donors. Baseball could use a name on its trophy too. I nominate Henry Aaron. I do not expect an argument.)
To answer my own question, this column has nothing to do with the events preoccupying at least two cities and any number of expatriates who know all three words to “Go, Cubs, Go.”
Columns that deal in themes must pick one and go where they are taken, and this one takes me back to Chief Wahoo.
I kind of miss the little dude.
The good chief does not have the dignity of, say, Black Hawk, the logo of the Blackhawks, who apparently was a real person, or a real hotel, it is unclear, yet one who doubtlessly never went out in public without war paint and an earring.
Chief Illiniwek officially has pranced his last dance for Illinois, though tribute characters still appear now and then, as “hostile and abusive” as ever without sanction of the school, the NCAA or nuance.
The Washington Redskins have been the most insufferably defiant to change, refusing to accept the notion that their name is in any way offensive. No matter how inappropriate, how passionate and persuasive the objections, no matter how shameful, how far removed the name is from its honored origins, the team continues to be known as Washington.
So, what to do with Chief Wahoo? The Cleveland baseball team winning this World Series would raise the profile of the mascot to the status of menace, a step or two above where he is now, which would be irritant at the worst and accessory at the best.
Cries of “Off with his head” would be heard, even if that is all we ever see of the little fellow.
As for the Cubs, fifth-graders who still use pencils will doodle as they must.
Bernie Lincicome is a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune.