The Rise and Fall of Chief Wahoo
This article was written by Vince Guerrieri
This article was published in Native American Major Leaguers (2025)
For more than 70 years officially – and even longer unofficially – a grinning Native American caricature named Chief Wahoo was the mascot for the Cleveland Indians.
He adorned the uniforms of the last Cleveland team to win a World Series, in 1948, and was part of the uniforms of every pennant winner in Cleveland since. A bigger-than-life-size statue guided fans to see him at Cleveland Stadium, grinning when a lot of Indians teams didn’t offer much for fans to smile about.
Although the statue didn’t make the move from Municipal Stadium to the Indians’ new home, Jacobs Field,1 in 1994, Chief Wahoo remained a mainstay of Indians’ gear, then some of the most popular in the major leagues. But as the team’s success attracted more notice and more fans, so too did Wahoo attract more protests.
Ultimately, the mascot – conceived without malice, its creator said – became untenable, and was stripped from the team’s uniforms, an early step in what turned into an overall rebranding. But Chief Wahoo remained an undeniable part of the Indians’ history. Some fans were more than willing to see him fade away, but many remained unwilling to let go.
In 1915 Cleveland’s American League baseball team, known most recently as the Naps in honor of player-manager Napoleon Lajoie, and before that as the Blues or Bronchos, was renamed the Indians. Many theories for the name have been offered. It wasn’t long before Indian visages were used on the team’s uniform.
The first year the Indians sported an Indian caricature on their uniforms was 1928, initially as a main logo on home uniforms. For the better part of the next 20 years, an Indian head appeared in profile on sleeves.2
In 1946 Bill Veeck bought the Indians from Alva Bradley, who had owned the team for 20 years. The Indians’ dynamic new owner started implementing changes immediately. The most notable one was the team’s move full-time to Cleveland Stadium from League Park. Veeck also commissioned a local graphics company, J.F. Novak, to design a new mascot for the Indians. The company submitted several designs. One stood out.3
The design was made by Walter Goldbach, a 17-year-old senior at James Rhodes High School in Cleveland. It was a smiling Indian with orange skin, a hooked nose and a single feather. “I wanted him to be happy,” Goldbach recalled in a 2008 interview with Cleveland Magazine. “As a 17-year-old kid, it was the last thing on my mind that I would offend someone.”4
The Indian bore more than a passing resemblance to a caricature that had appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer for the previous 15 years. It was the handiwork of Fred Reinert, who’d sent back sketches to his hometown paper while he was in the Army during World War I, and later became the Plain Dealer’s sports cartoonist. “The Little Indian,” as the character was called, was shown smiling after a team win and with a blackened eye after a loss. The Little Indian was so recognized and beloved that when Paul Brown became the namesake for a new football team in Cleveland in 1946, he asked Reinert to make a Brownie to serve as the team’s mascot. Shortly thereafter, Cleveland’s hockey team, the Barons of the American Hockey League, got a similar caricature for its mascot.5
For the first time in 1952, the mascot was referred to in the Plain Dealer as Chief Wahoo.6 At the time, “Big Chief Wahoo” was a comic strip character known as a “topper,” common in the Sunday comics, a smaller strip at the top of a larger comic strip, in this instance, “Steve Roper and Mike Nomad.”7 Big Chief Wahoo became a shorthand term for Native Americans in popular culture, and, indeed, the first baseball-related reference to Chief Wahoo in print was as a nickname for Allie Reynolds, a Creek Indian who played for the Indians and then was traded to the Yankees.8 An ad in the July 14, 1954, issue of The Sporting News touted Indians merchandise, including a Wahoo bank, a Wahoo jacket insignia, and an official Indians cap with the new official marking of Chief Wahoo.
By then, Chief Wahoo had gotten a facelift. In 1951, his skin tone changed from orange to red, and his nose lost its hook.9 The Chief remained part of the Indians’ uniform, inside the wishbone C of the baseball cap until 1957, and as part of the jersey for decades to come. In 1962 a large neon-lit sign was placed atop Gate D at Cleveland Stadium.10 The Chief, 29 feet tall, in a pose ready to swing at a pitch, was manufactured by Cleveland’s Brilliant Electric Sign Co.11 (Former Browns quarterback Milt Plum, who’d been traded to Detroit a month before the sign debuted,12 had his offseason job at the Brilliant Electric Sign Co., and was the sales rep who’d sold the sign to the team.13 )
By the end of the 1960s, the civil rights movement was in full force, populated by militant organizations. The Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland in 1966. Two years later, the American Indian Movement was founded in Minnesota, and the Chicano Movement began for Latino rights. AIM attracted attention with a series of bold movements, including a takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1969 and an occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973.14
In 1970 the Cleveland American Indian Movement was formed.15 The group demanded of Indians owner Vernon Stouffer that the team’s name be changed, writing, “Chief Wahoo, your degrading and insulting caricature which stereotypes the native American, must and has to be eliminated.”16 The group also started protesting the Indians name and Chief Wahoo at the team’s Opening Day game.17
In 1972 Russell Means, who founded the American Indian Movement and its Cleveland chapter, sued Stouffer and the Indians alleging “group libel.” Means also sought an injunction ending the use of Chief Wahoo.18 “Maybe Mr. Means is being overly sensitive,” wrote syndicated sportswriter Ira Berkow. “Maybe, though, oversensitivity comes only after a segment of our population is shunted aside and put, for example, into reservations and at best, condescendingly considered ‘noble savages.’”19
Stouffer, facing cash-flow problems unrelated to the lawsuit, started shopping the team around. After a deal with George Steinbrenner fell through, the team was sold to Cleveland sports impresario Nick Mileti, who already owned the Cavaliers of the NBA and a World Hockey Association team, the Cleveland Crusaders. In 1973 a new Wahoo logo debuted, showing the Chief in full figure batting, not unlike the statue atop Gate D.20 Also that year, new uniforms debuted, with the cap that’s become known as the Crooked C.21
Means’s lawsuit was settled in 1983, with results kept confidential. In 1986 Chief Wahoo became the logo on the Indians cap – a move not without its own controversy. The team was in a transitional state at the time. Owner Steve O’Neill had died in 1983, and his estate was fielding offers for the team, including those from out-of-town buyers. And Peter Bavasi had been hired as team president. The son of illustrious front-office man Buzzie Bavasi, Peter had worked as a consultant in Indianapolis and Tampa, both cities that were trying to lure a major-league baseball team.
The team’s 1986 uniforms said “Indians” on both home and road jerseys. And Chief Wahoo had replaced the C on the baseball caps. What evidence was there that the team was from Cleveland … or would remain in Cleveland?
“That’s simply paranoia,” Bavasi said. “What does Chief Wahoo mean? It means the Cleveland Indians. As a matter of fact, the Indians’ new baseball cap is the hottest selling baseball item nationally.”22
In fact, in an era when the Indians didn’t have star power, the most recognizable figure in Cleveland baseball was Chief Wahoo. “If Chief Wahoo is your main man, then the Stadium will have to be your summer hangout,” wrote the Plain Dealer’s Joe Maxse in the Indians 1987 season preview, outlining 19 giveaway days including Wahoo Bike Cap Day, White Wahoo Cap Day, Barbecue Apron Day, and Helmet Day.23
The next year, the Indians were sold to brothers Richard and David Jacobs, Akron, Ohio, natives who had made their fortune in real estate development. Plans were made for a new downtown baseball-only ballpark, but the Chief Wahoo statue – a landmark on the Lakefront – would not be making the trip.24 The statue was donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society. After a $50,000 restoration, it was put on display by the group.25
But Wahoo remained. In fact, under Jacobs’ ownership26 – which coincided with the most successful period for the Indians in 40 years – the team was steadfast in its loyalty to Chief Wahoo. “Mr. Jacobs has gone on record as saying as long as he owns the team, the nickname and logo will remain,” said Indians vice president of public relations Bob DiBiasio in 1998.27
After the 1999 season, however, Jacobs sold the team, to the Dolan family. Patriarch Larry Dolan was partner in a local law firm, but made his money through stock ownership in Cablevision, a company founded by his brother Charles.28 Dolan’s son Paul was named counsel and vice president for the team, becoming chairman and CEO in 2013.
Initially, Larry Dolan was just as passionately in favor of Chief Wahoo, describing him in a 2005 interview as “a beloved figure.”29 But there were limitations.
In 2009 the Indians moved into their new spring-training facility in Goodyear, Arizona.30 The logos on the facility were the script I – not Chief Wahoo. “I know there was some sensitivity involved on the outside of the complex” regarding the use of Chief Wahoo, said Paul Dolan, at the time team president. But Dolan added that at that point, there were no plans to phase out Chief Wahoo.31
However, it was progressively being deemphasized. In 2011 Wahoo disappeared from the road cap, and in 2013 from the home batting helmet. In January 2014 the team announced that the main logo would be a Block C similar to the logo on baseball caps in the 1980s.32 The Plain Dealer said in an editorial that it was time for the Chief to go entirely: “The Indians – the baseball variety – defend the smiling Wahoo as a benign symbol of the great American pastime, yet they have tacitly acknowledged its offensive characteristics by reducing Wahoo’s role in team marketing over the years. It’s time for a clean break.”33
In 2015, a federal judge in Washington, DC, ruled that Redskins could not be trademarked, since it was viewed as a disparaging name.34 The implications in Cleveland – where protests and lawsuits against Chief Wahoo and the Indians name went back decades – were clear.
The following year, the Indians won the American League Central Division championship. Their opponent in the American League Championship Series was the Toronto Blue Jays, and an indigenous activist, Douglas Cardinal, filed suit in Canada seeking an injunction preventing the Indians from wearing their uniforms or using their team name or logo.35 It was interpreted in Cleveland as a bit of gamesmanship, but to new Commissioner Rob Manfred, it was a sign that action needed to be taken.
When the Indians made their home debut in 2017, the New York Times reported that Manfred “had made clear his ‘desire to transition away from the Chief Wahoo logo.’”36 Earlier that year, Manfred announced that Progressive Field37 would host the 2019 All-Star Game, the first in Cleveland in 22 years. Early in 2018, the Indians announced that starting in 2019 – the year the Indians hosted the All-Star Game – Chief Wahoo would no longer be present on uniforms, on the field or in any decorations at the ballpark.38 Chief Wahoo merchandise would continue to be available for sale at the team shop. It didn’t take long for fans to start to believe that the midsummer classic was the team’s 30 pieces of silver for dropping Chief Wahoo.39
As it turned out, it was a prelude to an even bigger change. In 2021 the Dolan family announced that starting in 2022, for the first time since 1915, Cleveland’s team wouldn’t be the Indians. They would be the Guardians.
VINCE GUERRIERI is a journalist and author in the Cleveland area. He’s the secretary/treasurer of the Jack Graney SABR Chapter, and has contributed to the SABR BioProject, the SABR Games Project, and several SABR anthologies, serving as an editor for the book on the 1945 Cleveland Buckeyes. Additionally, he’s written about baseball history for a variety of publications, including Ohio Magazine, Cleveland Magazine, Smithsonian, and Defector. He can be reached at vaguerrieri@gmail.com, or found on Twitter @vinceguerrieri.
Notes
1 In 2008 the ballpark became Progressive Field, after the insurance giant acquired the naming rights.
2 http://exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/uniforms.asp?city=Cleveland&league=AL&sort=year&increment=9&pos=28.
3 Bob Finnan, “Wahoo Designer Die-Hard Tribe Fan,” Medina (Ohio) Gazette, April 11, 2017: 1.
4 Andy Netzel, “Life According to Walter Goldbach,” Cleveland Magazine, July 23, 2008. In the interview, he noted that the name Chief Wahoo was a misnomer, because he had only one feather, and chiefs had full headdresses. https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/people/articles/life-according-to-walter-goldbach.
5 Gordon Cobbledick, “Plain Dealing,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 14, 1962: 29.
6 Brad Ricca, “The Secret History of Chief Wahoo,” Belt Magazine, June 19, 2014. https://beltmag.com/secret-history-chief-wahoo/.
7 Allan Holtz, “Toppers: Indian Slango,” Stripper’s Guide, November 14, 2016. http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/2016/11/toppers-indian-slango.html.
8 Reynolds was a throw-in at the behest of Joe DiMaggio, who said he had a hard time hitting him when he faced the Indians.
9 Emily Bamforth (Associated Press), “Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo, from Inception to End: A Timeline,” https://apnews.com/article/mlb-new-york-baseball-cleveland-ohio-75c97df1d3c04f29ade9b7a5b1ec49d2.
10 Joe Posnanski, who grew up in Cleveland, said the statue could be seen half a mile away. https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/wahoo-from-2007.
11 “King-Sized Chief Wahoo Takes Stadium Post to Cheer on Tribe,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 27, 1962: 37.
12 “Browns Trade Milt Plum to Lions; Ninowski, Cassady Go to Cleveland in 3-for-3 Deal,” New York Times, March 30, 1962. https://www.nytimes.com/1962/03/30/archives/browns-trade-milt-plum-to-lions-ninowski-cassady-go-to-cleveland-in.html.
13 Gordon Cobbledick, “Plain Dealing,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 28, 1962: 33.
14 American Indian Movement, Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Indian-Movement
15 https://case.edu/ech/articles/c/cleveland-american-indian-movement.
16 Regis McAuley, “Militant indians [sic] do not like Cleveland’s use of emblem,” Dover (Ohio) Daily Reporter, April 3, 1970: 16.
17 Those were the doldrums for the Indians, and Opening Day turned out to be the only real crowd the team could count on through the years.
18 Russell Schneider, “Indians’ Wahoo Symbol Facing a Legal Skirmish,” The Sporting News, February 5, 1972: 43.
19 Ira Berkow, “Indians vs. ‘Indians’: A Matter of Sensitivity,” McKinney (Texas) Courier-Gazette, February 1, 1972: 5.
20 That logo lasted until 1978, when the previous incarnation of Chief Wahoo returned. “Tribal Notes,” Cleveland Call and Post, December 16, 1978: 19B.
21 The font, according to the Indians media guide at the time, was Neuland.
22 Paul Hoynes, “There Is Much Ado About Chief Wahoo,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 24, 1986: 50.
23 Joe Maxse, “Indians Plan 19 Giveaways,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 6, 1987: 65.
24 When Jacobs Field opened in 1994, ceremonial first pitches were thrown by President Bill Clinton, Ohio Gov. George Voinovich, and former Indians ace Bob Feller. Voinovich and Feller wore Wahoo caps. Clinton wore a 1980s era cap with a C on it. https://www.c-span.org/video/?55799-1/cleveland-indians-opening-day.
25 Mark Podolski, “Chief Wahoo Still a Divisive Symbol in Cleveland Sports,” Lorain (Ohio) Morning Journal, May 5, 2013. https://archive.ph/20130615123415/http:/morningjournal.com/articles/2013/05/05/sports/doc51872254d53a3380784079.txt?viewmode=fullstory#selection-1459.0-1459.55.
26 Although both brothers bought the team, David died in 1992, leaving Richard as the team’s primary owner until he sold to the Dolans.
27 Terry Pluto, “It’s time to Say Goodbye to Chief Wahoo,” Lorain Morning Journal, August 20, 1998. DiBiasio remains with the team today, a career of more than 40 years in Cleveland – broken only by a year in exile during Bavasi’s reign.
28 Charles’s son James – Larry Dolan’s nephew – is the controversial Knicks owner.
29 https://www.clevelandseniors.com/people/larrydolan.htm.
30 The Indians first went to Arizona for spring training in 1947. Owner Bill Veeck had a ranch in Arizona, but not coincidentally, that was the year the National League integrated with Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn and then the American League when Veeck signed Larry Doby to play for the Indians 10 weeks later. https://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/arizona/2019/01/18/cactus-league-arizona-spring-training-history/2233075002/.
31 Paul Hoynes, “Wahoo in Decline? New Spring Base Latest Sign of De-emphasis on Old Logo,” Cleveland.com, April 12, 2009. https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2009/04/mlb_insider_wahoo_in_decline_n.html.
32 Craig Calcaterra, “The Indians Are Changing Their Primary Logo from Chief Wahoo to the Block C,” NBC Sports. https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2014/01/08/the-indians-are-changing-their-primary-logo-from-chief-wahoo-to-the-block-c/.
33 “The Tribe Should Retire Chief Wahoo Once and for All,” Cleveland.com, February 28, 2014. https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2014/02/the_tribe_should_retire_chief.html.
34 Ian Shapira, “Federal Judge Orders Cancellation of Redskins’ Trademark Registrations,” Washington Post, July 8, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/judge-upholds-cancellation-of-redskins-trademarks-in-a-legal-and-symbolic-setback-for-team/2015/07/08/5a65424e-1e6e-11e5-aeb9-a411a84c9d55_story.html.
35 Nicole Thompson, “Canadian Activist Seeking Injunction Against Use of ‘Cleveland Indians’ Name,” Toronto Star, October 16, 2016. https://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/2016/10/16/canadian-activist-seeking-injunction-against-use-of-cleveland-indians-name.html.
36 David Waldstein, “Baseball Urges Indians to Phase Out Caricature,” New York Times, April 13, 2017: B10.
37 In 2008, Progressive Insurance bought the naming rights to Jacobs Field. https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3191639.
38 https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/cleveland-indians-fully-phase-out-chief-wahoo-logo-unveil-new-uniforms-for-2019/.
39 https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/rob-manfred-refutes-idea-mlb-granted-cleveland-2019-all-star-game-in-exchange-for-removal-of-indians-chief-wahoo-logo/.