Jim Thome HOF Plaque

This morning I woke up and had to shovel a foot of snow off of my car and my girlfriends car, my commute to work took twice as long as normal because of peoples inability to drive in snowy conditions, and yet none of that was the worst part of my morning. When I woke up I opened up twitter to catch up on my news as per the usual, scrolled past Donny saying he would beat up Joe Bidden, went past news that Dan Hurley played Pitt like a fiddle to get a better offer from UCONN, to one of the more troubling things I’ve ever read, “When Jim Thome’s Hall of Fame plaque is unveiled in July, it will feature the “Block C” logo as opposed to the “Chief Wahoo” logo that the Cleveland Indians have displayed on team caps in many seasons since its introduction in 1947″. This is a disaster of a move by the MLB for so many reason, and below are just a few I could think of off the top of my head.

• First things first is the fact that the “Block C” logo when compared to Chief Wahoo sucks. The Indians took one of the best logos in sports and changed it to such a shitty plain design, I mean just look at the two logos side by side below it’s not even a comparison. I get that it is C for Cleveland, and that’s what MLB teams do, they make their logos based on the cities they play in, but that’s just more reason why the new logo sucks. Chief Wahoo was original, it was an electric logo, and it represented the team name not just the city they play in.                                             

 

 

 

 

 

• The second reason having Thome wear the “Block C” logo is so outrageous is that during his time in Cleveland the primary logo was Chief Wahoo. The Indians started using the “Block C” as their primary logo in 2013, and not until 2019 will Chief Wahoo will no longer appear on uniforms. Okay well they probably don’t want the most recent Indian to go to the Hall of Fame to have a plaque with a logo they won’t be creating merchandise for, only problem is they still plan to license and merchandise Chief Wahoo. Why would they do that you might ask, why would they phase him out of the uniform but still sell merchandise showing this logo, the answer is because no one wants to buy shitty “Block C” merchandise over Chief Wahoo.
• Jim Thome already has a statue at Jacobs field with the Chief Wahoo logo on his helmet. Why you may ask would they put a statue up with the image they are fading out? The answer is because they are showing Jim Thome’s time as an Indian, and during that time the main logo was Chief Wahoo. Kinda tough to see in the image below but it is a Chief Wahoo logo.

Now I know why the Indians are phasing out the Chief Wahoo logo and I know why Thome is going in wearing a “Block C” cap on his plaque but that doesn’t mean it’s not disappointing. When you think of Thome you think of him with a Chief Wahoo logo on his head. When I first read the story my first reaction was, “Well what about the other Indians already in the HOF with the chief wahoo logo are they going to change their plaques too” There actually are no players who played for the Indians in the Hall of Fame as Indians during the Chief Wahoo era. The Hall of Fame is meant to immortalize a player for their playing career, and for Thome that is with the Chief on his head. At the end of the day, the decision should ultimately be Thome’s and if he wants to go in with the Block C that’s his decisions, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed in that. When you google Jim Thome’s name the first picture that appears from his playing days is below and I think that on the plaque would be the best representation of his playing days and that should be immortalized on a plaque, but that’s just my opinion.

-Big Dog

The MLB and Hall of Fame continually tries to erase their history, they try to pretend the steroid era never happened, they black ball the all time hits leader and now they are pretending that the Chief Wahoo logo never existed. You are never going to make everyone happy, if you put him in with the Wahoo logo people will be pissed, if it’s the Block C logo people will be pissed, he might as well get the plaque made that actually represents his time as an Indian rather than trying to keep everyone happy.