2013 True Religion Jeans

A quick check of Webster's Twentieth Century Unabridged Dictionary defines 'mascot' as Cheap True Religion Jeans  'any person, animal or thing supposed to bring good luck by being present.' So, it would seem that a team mascot is an honorable title. Most mascots in American sports had their origins in the early 1900s. Back then, teams fumbled around with quaint monickers until they gradually realized the tremendous marketing value they carried. The New York Highlanders became the more regionally-identifiable Yankees, for instance, and the Chicago Cubs took their nickname so newspaper editors could more easily fit it into headlines. Distinguished symbols like Tigers and Giants appeared. Unique features like White Stockings and Red Stockings evolved into the more headline-friendly and spelling-special White Sox and Red Sox.

One of the earliest attempts at humor in mascot-anointing was made by the Brooklyn nine of baseball's National League. Urban legend wasn't a known phrase back then, but it farily describes the allusion to fans who 'dodged'  Click to view 
  trolley fares to get a free ride to Ebbetts Field and watch the game. Those 'bums' were called Dodgers, and their favorite team became christened as such.

Ironically, that drift toward the whimsical --- probably intended to portray sports in its proper context as a divertissement of life --- may have been the root of indignation two generations later.

The social upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s were certainly justified, in my view. Civil rights needed to come to the fore, and the resultant improvement in how all peoples were perceived was a great step forward for mankind. Still, there's a difference between significant awareness and pedantic perception in any movement. Thus, in my view, when certain Native Americans first raised the mascot controversy in headlines of the time, the attention afforded was only due to its

being sucked into the backdraft of searing human rights campaigns.

Personally, I've always thought the issue had as much relevance to their legitimate True Religion Jeans concerns as bra-burning did for women's rights.

Think about it. Native Americans aren't alone in being designated as mascots. In accordance with Webster's Dictionary definition, other persons given the distinction include the Irish (University of Notre Dame) and Scandinavians (Minnesota Vikings). Both of these ethnic groups endured their moments of discrimination in the annals of American history, too. So far, neither has mounted a protest about being characterized as a good luck symbol for a sporting organization.

Don't even try to broach the 'caricature' argument as a reason why the Native American situation is different. Perhaps Notre Dame uses a leprechaun logo now, but the term 'Fighting Irish' was a clear reference to barroom brawlers, a stereotypical low-life trait at which immigrants from the Emerald Isle were perceived to be quite proficient. As to the Scandinavians, there is no evidence that even one Viking was ever so dim as to go into battle with a set of heavy horns on his helmet; why would any warrior charge into a kill-or-be-killed scenario wearing anything that could directly impede his ability to win? (The image of horns came from priests' drawings of Viking attacks, attempting to equate them to the Devil incarnate, and it was Wagner who popularized this image when he staged his epic Ring of the Niebelung.)

Cleveland's baseball team sorted through a number of mascots in their early days. 'Spiders' just didn't have that 'je ne sais crois' of marketing sizzle. They were the 'Naps' for a while, in honor of their star player-manager, http://www.jeansuksales.co.uk/    Napoleon Lajoie. So, when they finally settled on 'Indians' in correlation to one of their first star players --- Louis Sockalexis, a Native American --- the monicker may not have begun as a tribute to him, but it has since memorialized his legacy. The evidence indicates the term was derogatorily applied to all members of the Cleveland team in the 1890s because it dared to have the fortitude to allow an Indian to play for them. Since then, Sockalexis has been recognized as being as much of a pioneer for minority involvement in major sports as the great Jackie Robinson was fifty years later.