# My baseball team the New York Negros and my football team the Houston Hebes **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 26, 2003, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203 "2003-03-26T03:33:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/21 "2003-03-26T22:40:22Z")
I agree about the **Redskins**. That’s the team I grew up with, but it’s just an offensive name. Rename them the Red Sox or something. **Braves** , **Chiefs** , etc., keep. **Indians**? Wait until the dust settles on a term for all the people of the Americas who were here when Europeans showed up. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/22 "2003-03-26T22:51:22Z")
Animal rights activists ought to be up in arms over my high school team–The Miramonte Matadors. ---
**Author:** ![Myrr21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Myrr21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrr21)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/23 "2003-03-26T23:45:57Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t say this as an argument for keeping the name, but I thought it was kind of curious. I saw a poll about two years back showing that while about 80% of tribal leaders wanted the name changed, only about 30% of the people they represented did. Which amused me greatly; people really _are_ all the same everywhere 🙂 > [@](#): > > Rename them the Red Sox or something. Oh no you don’t. I’ve resigned myself to continual disappointment in one sport, thank you very much. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/24 "2003-03-27T01:17:48Z")
I suppose maaaybe Redskin is offensive. I guess it’s so old maybe that I don’t know much about it, but we do call people black and white, so is it automatically offensive to say, “Redskin”. I admit to being uninformed on this. But I have to back up what some others have said here. No one is complaining about the Celtics or the U.C. Santa Barbara Gauchos (that I’ve heard of, anyway), or the San Diego Padres. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/25 "2003-03-27T01:38:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bup \ ***Indians**? Wait until the dust settles on a term for all the people of the Americas who were here when Europeans showed up. Would anybody object to the **Cleveland Aborigines**? **Cleveland Native Americans** is a little too cumbersome, and aborigines is more correct. I am a native American, since I was born in America (which is what the word “native” properly signifies). My ancestors, beginning about eight generations ago that I know of, were not. I don’t really know what the debate is about anyway. When enough people get pissed off that they stop buying tickets, the names will change. Not likely before. Personally, I think most “political correctness” is bunk. People will be insulted if they choose to be, but no one has a “right” never to be offended. ---
**Author:** ![hermann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b487fb/32.png) [@hermann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hermann)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/26 "2003-03-27T03:34:35Z")
I’d root for the Kansas City Krauts. ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/27 "2003-03-27T03:57:58Z")
As someone whose great-grandparents named Bolachawicz literally took a boat from Gdansk to get here, I can honestly say “Pittsburgh Polacks” offends me not a bit. What does offend me is that this team would be located in _Pittsburgh_. Ick. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/28 "2003-03-27T12:50:38Z")
Frankly, a point that would matter would be _why_ they were named the “Hebes.” The Redskins are named after a star… uh, pitcher, back in the day. If the founding roster of the Hebes was half jewish and so was, say, the owner, then hell, go for it. Marge Schott? Sit on a pole and spin. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/29 "2003-03-27T12:57:34Z")
Sorry, Cleveland Indians are named after a pitcher. And even that may be incorrect, checking. Lou Sockalexis was the Cleveland Indian, an outfielder. [http://www.courttv.com/trials/wahoo/mascotchart.html](http://www.courttv.com/trials/wahoo/mascotchart.html) for a list of current mascots and origins. ---
**Author:** ![greck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ab992/32.png) [@greck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/greck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/30 "2003-03-27T15:14:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hermann \* > \*\*I’d root for the Kansas City Krauts. \*\* I doubt it, they’d probably suck as bad as the chiefs and the royals. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/31 "2003-03-27T16:53:26Z")
The Red Menace would be a good name for a team. Nobody has mentioned how the potrayal of the Vikings is offensive. You racists. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/32 "2003-03-27T18:30:08Z")
In college, we named our dorm’s nickname “The Flaming Donuts of Jesus” for one event. The name changed for each sport we were involved in. “The Laughing Death” was another. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/33 "2003-03-27T18:31:19Z")
\*\*Yeah, Random Stereotypes! Make one of your own, collect them all! \*\* An WNBA team could be called the Detroit Dykes. Arkansas can be: The Kissing Cousins. Harvard: The Wasps. What is their nickname anyways? San Fran could be the 69’s or the Nathan Lanes. ( thanks to the Gay Bowling Team thread.) Any NY team could be called, " Fergetaboutit" or “GoFuckYerself” Texas could have a team called “The Executioners.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/34 "2003-03-27T18:59:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by E-Sabbath \* > \*\*The Redskins are named after a star… uh, pitcher, back in the day. \*\* The Redskins were named because they were the Boston Red Sox (Boston had the football Red Sox and baseball Red Sox, like St. Louis had two Cardinals teams in the 70’s, or New York had two Giants…), and they just got renamed - I don’t know if it was before or after the move to DC. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/35 "2003-03-27T19:01:36Z")
Well, [this site](http://www.jt-sw.com/football/pro/teams.nsf/histories/redskins/) makes me out to be an absolute liar. Anyway, they were the Braves, then the Redskins in Boston. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_Who](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c2a13f/32.png) [@The\_Man\_Who](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_Who)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/36 "2003-03-27T22:26:03Z")
“One Indian advocate, in the constant hoopla over team mascots, raised the question of how Jews would feel if there was a team called “The Brooklyn Fighting Jews.” My answer, honest, immediate, 100 percent sincere, is “Fantastic.” I would buy a big Brooklyn Fighting Jews sweatshirt and wear it to the newspaper on the weekends. I’d buy a banner from the New York Sluggin’ Hassids, complete with caricature of a hook-nosed rebbe blasting one out of the park. I’d put it over my kid’s crib.” From “The Alphabet of Modern Annoyances” by Neil Steinberg. Chapter 22, V is for Victim, page 243. I used to work construction with a Sioux family and they all wore various Native American team caps, (Redskins and Florida Seminoles, if I remember right). I never specifically asked, but I got the impression he was pretty good-humored about the whole business. This was when I was in South Dakota. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@PatrickM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickM)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/37 "2003-03-27T23:29:34Z")
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a die hard, Chief Wahoo wearing Cleveland Indians fan. Data published in Sports Illustrated magazine’s March 4, 2002 issue at pages 64-72 in an article by S.L. Price entitled “The Indian Wars”, with a sidebar story on page 69 by Andrea Woo entitled “Polls Apart”, shows that sports team Indian/logo protesters lack support from the majority of Native Americans. The poll, conducted by the Peter Harris Research Group, showed that 75% of Indians said that team names and mascots such as “Indians,” “Redskins” and “Braves” didn’t discriminate against them; that only 23% of Native Americans were actually offended by such team nicknames; and that 83% of the Indians approved the continued use of those nicknames. Authors Price and Woo admitted that the results “surprised” them and said, “There is a near total disconnect between Indian activists and the Native American population on this issue”, which is a polite way of saying that the self-appointed activists have few followers among the rank and file Indians, even though the activists have been pushing this issue for a number of years now. While the anti-Indians-sports-logo activists have to date successfully guilt-tripped former Cleveland mayor Michael White and the editorial board of the Portland (OR) newspaper The Oregonian, most American Indian people correctly see that Chief Wahoo, the Atlanta Braves and Washington Redskins are just symbols of pro sports teams and aren’t inherently symbols of evil or oppression. The protestors can only counter such concrete evidence by use of the logical fallacy of ‘poisoning the well’ by calling Indians who don’t dislike the logos “Uncle Toms.” ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203/38 "2003-03-28T05:42:04Z")
> [@](#): > > The Brooklyn Fighting Jews Now \*this \* is a t-shirt I would wear. I love it. From San Francisco (again): \*\*The Fortune Cookies. Chinamen Zipperheads \*\* their ‘symbol’ could be YYK From Detroit: \*\*The Camel Jockeys The Party Store Owners we have a very large arab pop.here. Fighting Pollacks loads of pollacks too. and \*\*The Polish Muslims \*\* [size]which is an actual band here. [/size] Texas: \*\*The Shitkickers \*\* \*\*Florida \*\* The Wandering Tourist. The Wandering Jew [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-baseball-team-the-new-york-negros-and-my-football-team-the-houston-hebes/164203.md?page=1)