In-Guar-Dians: This Week in Tribe Baseball

So, the Cleveland Indians will change their name to the Cleveland Guardians for the 2022 season. Thoughts?

Dave Sterling 
WHATEVER YOUR OPINION IS, IT IS WRONG

Corey 
Who could have predicted such a rebranding? 😉

Once they club announced a renaming was underway I’ve been pulling for this name. I think it reflects the city in a couple ways. Cleveland is no longer the majority blue collar, lunch pail, industrial town seen in black and white film. One of largest employers is now is healthcare. The Clinic, UH, Metro and others employs thousands of Clevelanders. These are care givers, compassionate people who want to take care of their neighbors. Arguably they are guardians of health and well-being. In the same way the people from here have such a fondness for the city they will defend it against any joke tellers, nay sayers, or haters who would put it down. We guard the city’s honor and reputation. Also there’s a bridge leading into town.

Andrew Schnitkey 
I was mostly in the “Anything But Spiders” camp, so I’m fine with the name change. And honestly, even visually, when it’s written out in the script, the uniforms even look pretty much the same. I just don’t think it’s a big deal. I care much more that the team is in Cleveland than I do what the team name is. I’ll root for the Guardians just as much as I have the previous name. To me, it’s just a name.

mitch 
I didn’t like Guardians, and there are still aspects that I don’t like, but ultimately, I’ve grown to appreciate it much more quickly than I expected. I really don’t like how little opportunity there is for modification–with spiders, you had all sorts of fun imagery, like webs, fangs, etc. What fun things can we do with Guardians? The only thing I can think of is CORPORATE SYNERGY with a billion dollar entertainment company. Let’s not do that.

Michael Bode 
There are a lot of imagery things you can do with Guardians beyond replacing Slider with Groot. Corey mentioned a few above though you can also do knights or any number of other things if you really want to go down that route. It was a safe choice given the bridges… I wish they would have been a bit more creative, but I understand why they went the safe route too.

I don’t like how a “G” looks as a standalone without other letters. Some other people seem to like the winged-G baseball logo, but I think it is clip-art levels of bad.

However, the diamond-font C is an improvement over the block-C. Having similar cursive font as present uniforms have for the jerseys does help it tie-in with the current team and sports are nothing (at least how I follow them) without the generational ties.

Taylor Jedrzejek 
I am on board with the new name. I was originally a big proponent of “Spiders”, but Guardians grew on me with all the awesome concepts that were floating around. (“Municipals” made a late push as well, probably ended up as my number 2). I think the aspects of the branding are good…exceedingly safe, but good. I think not directly referencing the statues a little more was a bit of a miss, but I’m sure more will be done with that over time. No name was ever going to please everyone, but I think this one at least has a very good base for expanding on the brand.

I do think they missed a chance to update the uniforms a bit. As they stand, they are nice, but kinda bland. Hopefully they do something fun with them in the next few years…looking at you “City Connect”.

My biggest hope in all of this is that the shorthand for the team doesn’t become “The Guards”. I’m not calling them “The Guards”.
Ultimately, the biggest swing and miss of the whole process was not having merch ready when the name was announced

Michael Bode
MLB has rules on merchandise and Dolan explained (I believe to The Athletic) that they were not allowed to have merchandise available until the end of the current season, which he indicated they would.

Now, does that include pre-orders? I don’t know. It does feel odd to have an announcement without that availability.

Dave Sterling 
why the heck would the MLB even HAVE a rule about that?! how often does a team change a name?! I hate baseball sometimes. You’d think a quick call to the commissioner: “Hey, our name is coming out, do you mind if we sell a few hats?”

Andrew Schnitkey
That’s an excellent point

Michael Bode 
I imagine all professional sports have a similar rule about changing uniforms, logos, and such. There is a reason both of the Browns changes happened in the offseason (the orangier orange, then back to the more traditional look uniform sets). Refund demands, supplier production and stockpile issues, et cetera. There is a lot that goes into it.

Taylor Jedrzejek
The Hornets were literally selling a ton of new merch while they were still the Bobcats. They unveiled the branding in December, weren’t officially the Hornets until May…still sold a bunch of teal and purple stuff in the interim.

Dave Sterling
I still think there are so few Major League Baseball organizations that you can handle this thing on a per-case basis. What is the rule intended for, how is it being violated, does it matter, etc. So Hey commish, We want to be the gaurdians, we’ll wait until next year but this was about to leak so we want to do it now. Do you mind if we have fanatics make a hat for dave?

Taylor Jedrzejek 
Fanatics, in all their seemingly infinate power over sports merchandise, has to be less than thrilled….lol