(Architect Douglas Cardinal is in a Toronto court trying to bar Cleveland’s baseball team name. Photo: APTN)
APTN National News
A Toronto court will hear arguments today on an attempt to bar the Cleveland Indians from using their team name and logo in Ontario.
The legal challenge by Indigenous architect Douglas Cardinal comes on the same day that the baseball team takes on the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.
What’s in a name? Click here: Cleveland Indians
Cardinal’s lawyers will ask the court to bar the usage of the name and logo by the team, Major League Baseball and Rogers Communications, which is broadcasting the American League Championship Series.
Rogers also owns the Blue Jays and the stadium they play in, the Rogers Centre.
The logo, called Chief Wahoo, is a cartoon man with red skin and a feather in his headband.
Cardinal is a world-renowned architect whose buildings include the Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Museum of Civilization) in Gatineau, Que., and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
His advocacy also includes an effort to stop a development near Victoria Island on the outskirts of downtown Ottawa.
Cardinal’s representatives say team members shouldn’t be allowed to wear their regular jerseys, the logo shouldn’t be broadcast and the team should be referred to as “the Cleveland team.”
Before the series started, Blue Jays radio play by play announcer Jerry Howarth said he hadn’t used the team’s name in 25 years following a letter he receieved from a fan. Howarth said he also doesn’t say Atlanta’s team name.
— with files from the Canadian Press
