MLB’s Texas Rangers face pressure to change name amid scrutiny over symbols, historical figures

ARLINGTON, Texas (KCBD) - A Chicago Tribune columnist argued Thursday, Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers should change their team name because of its ties to brutality and racism.

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “The Rangers have always been widely revered in my native state. We learned they were fearless guardians of civilization whose exploits went back to when settlers were fighting Comanche warriors.” Chapman continued by writing, “They burned peasant villages and slaughtered innocents,” he writes. “They committed war crimes. Their murders of Mexicans and Mexican Americans made them as feared on the border as the Ku Klux Klan in the South.”

The Texas Rangers have been put under harsh scrutiny as of lately due to the rise in racial tensions in the United States.

Dallas city and airport officials recently removed a statue that had stood at Love Field since 1962 — of a Texas Ranger.

Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers have had their current name since 1972. Prior to 1972, the Texas Rangers were named the Washington Senators for 10 years since 1961.

Chapman ends by stating, “It may be argued that the team name honors the current agency, not the worst elements of its history. But without the history and the legends, the franchise would not have adopted the name. No one would name a major league team ‘The Police’ or ‘The Highway Patrol'.”

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