The Spokane Indians: A Collaboration of Team and Tribe
This article was written by Eric Vickrey
This article was published in Native American Major Leaguers (2025)
Signage at Avista Stadium in Spokane. (Courtesy of Eric Vickrey)
Native American-themed team names and mascots were commonplace in professional baseball during the twentieth century. Images such as an Indian chief in a feathered headdress or warlike caricatures were often used in logos and advertisements. These depictions were often considered derogatory and misrepresented the rich diversity of America’s Indigenous people. Protests by fans and Native American groups that began during the civil rights movement resulted in the Cleveland Indians finally dropping their offensive Chief Wahoo logo a half-century later. Two years after the logo switch, the team changed its name to the Guardians. The minor-league franchise in Spokane, Washington, on the other hand, maintains the name “Indians” as a tribute to the Native people through a unique collaboration with the Spokane Tribe.
The city of Spokane has a rich baseball history. Since the turn of the twentieth century, a long list of the sport’s luminaries have passed through the so-called Inland Empire, including Stan Coveleski, George Kelly, Maury Wills, Steve Garvey, Tommy Lasorda, Bill Russell, Davey Lopes, Bill Madlock, Zack Greinke, and Carlos Beltrán, just to name a few. Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg was born and raised in Spokane, as was popular singer Bing Crosby, who played baseball at Gonzaga University. They all wore spikes on land first inhabited by the ancestors of the Spokane Tribe of Indians – the Native people for whom the city was named.
For thousands of years, the Spokanes lived in an area of northeast Washington that covered approximately 3 million acres.1 They lived a seminomadic existence, sometimes hunting and foraging in parts of present-day northern Idaho and western Montana. The Spokane River and its tributaries provided their primary source of food, and the visually stunning Spokane Falls were considered sacred. The Spokanes and other regional tribes spoke a dialect called Interior Salish.
The nineteenth century was a period of significant change for the Inland Northwest. It began with the arrival of the first White settlers and ended with the westward expansion of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the establishment of a city first known as Spokane Falls, and later Spokane. Between 1880 and 1910, the city’s population exploded from 350 to more than 100,000.2
Along with Spokane’s growth came baseball. The city’s first professional team played in 1890 as a member of the Pacific Northwest League, but the league folded in its third season.3 After a pair of unsuccessful attempts to revive the circuit in the 1890s, Spokane’s next professional entry was organized in 1901. Two years later, the Spokane Spokesman-Review held a contest to adopt an official team name. The name Inlanders was selected, but a few weeks later the local papers inexplicably began referring to the team as the Indians, and the name stuck.4 By 1909, the Spokane baseball club had started using depictions of Native Americans on printed materials. A few years later, “a man dressed in Native American regalia is seen performing a ceremony on the baseball mound.”5
Because of World War I and the Great Depression, there was no professional baseball in Spokane from 1921 to 1936. When Spokane became a charter member of the Class-B Western International League in 1937, the team was called the Hawks for two seasons before Bill Ulrich bought the franchise and restored the name Indians.6 Spokane remained a part of Class-B leagues through the 1956 season.
Another iteration of Spokane Indians baseball was born in 1958 when the city was awarded the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Triple-A franchise. With Pacific Coast League baseball coming to town, Spokane County built a new ballpark, first called simply Spokane Indians Ball Park and later Avista Stadium. Native American appropriations remained part of the landscape; tepee-shaped ticket booths were placed outside of the ballpark entrance and newspapers from the early 1960s show players wearing feather headdresses to opening day galas.
After 14 seasons as the Dodgers’ top farm team, the Indians cycled through Triple-A affiliations with four other major-league teams over the next nine seasons. Since 1983 Spokane has been home to Class-A baseball. Former major leaguers George and Ken Brett, along with brothers John and Bobby, bought the team in 1985. As of 2024, the Indians were an affiliate of the Colorado Rockies and owned by Brett Sports and Entertainment.
The National Congress of American Indians, a coalition of tribes from across the US, launched a campaign to ban disparaging Native mascots in 1968. Four years later, students at Stanford University successfully petitioned to have Indians removed as the school’s mascot. In the 1990s, protests of Native American mascots became more fervent. One of the leaders at the forefront of the movement was Spokane Tribe member Charlene Teters, who began protesting Chief Illiniwek, the mascot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, while she was enrolled at the school. In 1991, Teters helped found the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and in the Media. By 1993, the Spokane baseball club had removed all Native American imagery from its logos and signage and adopted a dinosaur named Otto as its mascot. But the team was still called the Indians.
In 2005 Spokane’s baseball executives explored the idea of a new team logo and engaged the Spokane Tribe for their input. In a meeting between team brass and the Spokane Tribal Council at the tribe’s headquarters in Wellpinit, Washington, tribal elders expressed appreciation that the team had avoided using offensive imagery, chants, and mascots for many years.
“As we looked for a new logo, we wanted to make sure they were still okay with us using the name ‘Indians’ if we continued to stay away from Native American imagery,” recalled then-team President Andy Billig, a team co-owner and the CEO of Brett Sports. “We told them we were also open to changing the team name if they thought it was problematic. In that meeting the idea was hatched collaboratively to keep the name and embrace Native American imagery but do so in a way that was collaborative, respectful, and educational. From there the idea picked up steam with a particular focus on using this partnership to further educate the community about the Spokane Tribe and the Salish language.”7
When it became clear that the tribe’s priority was to preserve a dialect spoken by only a handful of elders, the team came up with a way to incorporate the Salish language in its rebranding. Two new logos were designed. The primary logo was a red “S” over a baseball inside a circle with two eagle feathers to pay homage to the Native people. A secondary logo was a shoulder patch with “Spokane Indians Baseball Club” written in Salish. The new logos were unveiled at a 2006 ceremony at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. “We wanted this new identity to show respect for the Spokane Tribe and honor the rich 104-year history of the team,” Billig said at the time. “I think we accomplished both of our goals.”8
Salish jersey (Courtesy of Spokane Indians)
Though regional tribes and the Spokane community overwhelmingly supported the ongoing use of the name Indians, there was objection from some national groups. “Any compromise short of dropping ‘Indian’ and any identifiable Native logos would be unacceptable to us and should be unacceptable to the Spokane Nation,” said Vernon Bellecourt, president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media.9
In 2014 the collaborative partnership between the baseball club and the Spokane Tribe resulted in a new jersey design with Spokane written in Salish – Sp’q’n’i – across the chest. (There is an additional symbol at the end of the word not found in the English alphabet.) Players wore the Salish jerseys that season as an alternate uniform in a handful of games. A year later, they donned them for every home game, and since 2017 the Salish jerseys have been worn both at home and on the road. The National Baseball Hall of Fame has recognized the jersey’s cultural significance by adding one to the museum’s permanent collection.
In 2016 Spokane baseball executives wanted to come up with a new mascot to excite fans in the bottom of the sixth inning and again looked at ways of honoring the Spokane Tribe. They landed on the redband trout, a historically important part of the Indigenous people’s diet. In conjunction with the new mascot, the team designed alternate jerseys, caps, and logos. The campaign was meant to connect with younger fans who will be responsible for caring for the river habitat in the future.
Today, many signs in Avista Stadium are written in both Salish and English. Outside of the ballpark entrance is an exhibit that informs visitors about the history and culture of the Native people. The only Native American imagery in the ballpark is the Spokane Tribe of Indians’ logo, which is located next the right-field scoreboard.
The distinction between Cleveland and Spokane’s use of the name Indians has to do with sanctioned versus unsanctioned Native mascots. “The mascot issue is one of tribal sovereignty and input from those whose traditional lands the team and the community occupy is of primary importance,” said a spokesperson for the National Conference of American Indians in 2023. “NCAI supports the Spokane Tribe of Indians exercising their sovereignty to collaborate with the Spokane Indians baseball club in pursuit of imagery which honors their peoples and culture. Given the formal collaboration with the Spokane Tribe of Indians, the Spokane Indians mascot is considered sanctioned by the Tribal Nation. NCAI always defers to and supports tribal sovereignty in this space.”10
“We want [the Spokane baseball team] to keep the name because of how they approached us,” explained Carol Evans, a member Spokane Tribal Council, in 2020. “They listened to the elders, and that is what really developed the relationship over time, and it has grown into like a family partnership unit where we have a lot of respect for one another.”11
“We are not their mascot,” said Evans. “They’re named after our tribe.”12
Since joining SABR in 2020, ERIC VICKREY has contributed numerous articles for the Games and Bio Projects. His writing through SABR has spurred two books—Runnin’ Redbirds: The World Champion 1982 St. Louis Cardinals and Season of Shattered Dreams: Postwar Baseball, the Spokane Indians, and a Tragic Bus Crash That Changed Everything. Eric is also co-editor on a forthcoming SABR book about the 2001 Seattle Mariners. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Gina, and their two cats, Edgar and Ralphie.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to express gratitude to Spokane Indians co-owner Andy Billig for sharing his memories of the team’s collaboration with the Spokane Tribe. Additional thanks to the National Congress of American Indians for expressing their viewpoint on this topic.
Notes
1 “The History of the Spokane Tribe of Indians,” https://spokanetribe.com/history/, accessed July 30, 2023.
2 Spokane Press, May 7, 1920: 1.
3 Jim Price, “Birth of the Indians,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, June 21, 2003: 64.
4 Price, “Birth of the Indians.”
5 Larkin Marie Mullin, “Spokane’s Other Indians, A Baseball Story,” Spokane Historical, https://spokanehistorical.org/items/show/513, accessed July 30, 2023.
6 “Spokane Hawks ‘Indians’ Now,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, March 18, 1939: 15.
7 Email from Andy Billig to the author, August 23, 2023.
8 Kevin Graman, “Baseball Team Consults with Tribe on Logos,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, November 30, 2006: 1.
9 Graman, “Baseball Team Consults with Tribe on Logos.”
10 Email from a National Congress of American Indians spokesperson to the author, August 15, 2023.
11 David Waldstein, “They’re the Indians, with Native American Support,” New York Times, August 4, 2020: B7.
12 Jon Mooallem, “I Had a Chance to Travel Anywhere. Why Did I Pick Spokane,” New York Times, September 21, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/magazine/spokane-indians-minor-league-baseball.html, accessed July 28, 2023.