Yay or nay: The Cleveland Spiders?

Should the Cleveland Indians ever decide to ditch Chief Wahoo and their Native American nickname, our fashion-minded friends at Uni Watch are holding an interesting contest this week. With perhaps the most creative readership in the blogosphere, they're soliciting suggestions not only for a new name but a logo and uniform as well.

You can see all the submissions in this post and this post, from a cool brown-and-orange pairing with the Browns (Bulldogs) to names based on other city "attractions" (Cuyahogas and Rock Stars). The most frequent entry, however, is the "Spiders," a nod to the old National League team that played in Cleveland before the turn of the 20th century.

Even though the 1899 Spiders team is best known for compiling a worst-in-history 20-134 record before being contracted, I kind of like it. Or maybe I should say that I really like it. It's a cool reference to the city's baseball past and several of the Uni Watch mockups look pretty fearsome. If you're going to go for a rebranding effort, you could do a lot worse. (Yes, we're looking at you, Washington Wizards.) I think it would look awfully weird at first, but not after awhile if they did it right.

I'm sure, though, that a lot of you out there have your own ideas, whether it's one of Uni Watch's suggestions or one of your own. Or perhaps you hate the whole exercise completely and want to swear at me in the comments, even though this is supposed to be fun and poses no real risk to the Indians' current name at this point.

So let's hear it. Are you on board with the Spiders and one of the uniform suggestions? If you aren't, which name would you prefer?

Big BLS H/N: Waiting For Next Year

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