Stars & Stripes Wahoo: Yea, or Nay?

If you haven’t heard, MLB.com is selling an alternate version of the hats worn by all 30 baseball teams.  Said hats will reportedly be worn by the teams during the July 4th weekend, as well as September 11th.

While I’m not about to go all fashion police, I wanted to point you to a few opinions on the matter.

Paul Lukas over at UniWatch has a very in depth account of the hats.  He asks a few questions, most of which I really cannot answer off of the top of my head.

What about the Blue Jays? They’ve been given a Canadian flag version of the cap, which is somewhat weird on a couple of fronts. First of all, they’re playing on the road on the Independence Day weekend and on September 11th (and also on July 1st, which is Canada Day), so they’ll be wearing a foreign flag while playing in America and marking an American holiday. […]

Does the September 11th component of this promotion mean that the Mets will no longer be wearing first responder caps on that date, as they’ve done ever since the World Trade Center attacks?

And specifically reagarding the Indians version, we start to get into the whole “politically correct” debate that seems to resurface each time the Indians are a part of the National Spotlight – similar to last season’s playoffs.

David Chalk, of Bugs and Cranks fame, exclaims that the MLB should have went with the “I” logo in this instance.

Our man Jon Steiner (sort of) fires back with a vote of semi-apathy.

I certainly find Chief Wahoo no more offensive than countless other instances of cultural hegemony with which I’m faced everyday.  The remnants of colonization in this country are ubiquitous: the drastically disproportionate rates of homelessness, incarceration, and poverty among blacks: the unequal pay between men and women: the continued political hegemony of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants in a country that has remarkable diversity.

Personally, I have never been one to sway either way on Chief Wahoo.  Unlike Jon, Chief Wahoo was a part of my childhood as a baseball fan.  The giant Wahoo that was suspended above the gate at Municipal Stadium was actually one of my favorite parts of the old digs.  If it wasn’t a big deal to others, there wouldn’t be stills of the crane taking him down before the demolition.

Can I understand why some would be offended?  I guess, but its mostly due to my feelings that everyone can be offended by something.  Part of me just wishes that people would focus on things that actually mattered – and a logo on a hat is not one of those “things.”

So what say you, Tribe fans?  Do you like the idea?  Should they have opted for the “I?”  Let’s hear it…