WASHINGTON, D.C. - Earlier this year the United States senate overwhelmingly approved The Zuccarelli-Powdermaker Be Nice To Indians Bill which mandates that every professional sports team that currently uses a Native-American mascot name must change it to something else by midnight March 1, 2009.
Teams failing to do so will forfeit all of their games and they will be fined $3 million plus $20,000 for each hour after that. Any franchise failing to make the change will also forfeit all money income from food concessions including hot dogs, peanuts, nachos, corn-on-the-cob kabobs, fried Twinkies, popcorn, Raisenets, and sushi.
The six teams and the new names that they will be using effective Sunday, March 1, 2009 are:
- Football
- Washington Redskins - Washington Politicians
- Kansas City Chiefs - Kansas City Plowboys
- Cleveland Indians - Cleveland Pharmacists
- Atlanta Braves - Atlanta Cottonballs
- Golden State Warriors - Golden State 6.9ers
- Chicago Blackhawks - Chicago Fighting Icicles
Baseball
Basketball
Hockey
In a related story, the Cincinnati Reds were initially told to change their name but team attorneys took the matter to court and proved that the name 'Reds' did not imply a Native-American name, but was merely just a plain good old American color, like blue, green, or fuchsia.
(E pluribus unum, ipso facto, and Uecker seats)
