Chief Wahoo No Longer Primary Logo for Cleveland Indians

Chief Wahoo is now officially second-fiddle in Cleveland as word came today courtesy a Tweet via Paul Lukas of ESPN and Uni-Watch that the block-C logo has been promoted to the status of primary logo. Although the Chief will still remain on the jersey sleeves and primary home caps, this serves as another example of what appears to be the Indians slowly phasing out the existence of the controversial logo.

As noted in a related article from October, the Indians have been using the block-C logo everywhere; From the batting helmets for both home & away games to outright replacing Chief Wahoo on a World Series retrospective posted by MLB.com, the block-C has been gaining plenty of prominence in the Indians’ logo hierarchy. Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra notes that the block-C logo has been far-and-away the most prominently used logo at the Indians’ spring training facilities in Goodyear, Arizona. Clearly, it appears that this move has been coming, and we’ve seen it coming from a mile away.

Block-C helmets at home, which did not start until 2013

Although it doesn’t seem likely that Chief Wahoo will be completely eliminated from the Indians’ visual identity anytime soon, it does look clear that the logo will at least be phased out to the backgrounds, maybe even to become a mere shadow behind the block-C logo and the Indians script logo.

The Indians have apparently denied the logo change is happening:

And they’re either lying or this particular spokesperson is just unaware of the change. We can 100% confirm that the change has happened through our super-reliable sources, unless the Indians start a Atlanta Braves-esque “IT WAS NEVER OFFICIAL” cover-up like the Braves did with their 2013 BP cap.

Either way, with this news and the news that the Spokane Indians (minor league affiliate of the Texas Rangers, go figure) also promoted their secondary logo, a roundel that spells Spokane Indians in the Salish language of the Spokane Tribe of Indians (who were consulted when the minor league team went through the process of going to their excellent current identity in 2006) to primary status, it appears that the tide is definitely turning when it comes to these types of logos.