Indians Are Now Guardians, and Twitter Is in a Mood

Does anything really happen until it’s roasted on Twitter? The baseball team formerly known as the Cleveland Indians is now the Cleveland Guardians. Sure, there’s a contingency of people who saw no need for a change. And there are plenty of people who are puzzled because they don’t realize the new name refers to the Guardians of Traffic, four huge, dramatic Art Deco statues on the Hope Memorial Bridge in Cleveland. But droves of Twitter users are jazzed about the opportunity to make a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy jokes. “If they don’t sing ‘Let me Groot, Groot, Groot for the home team’ during ‘Take me out ot the ballgame’ I’m gonna be furious,” writer Eric Stangel tweeted.

Another user tweeted that it was odd that Cleveland used California native Tom Hanks to narrate the video debuting the new name. But Hanks, who started his career in the city, is a long-time fan of the team, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. Some were hoping for a revival of the Spiders, a short-lived Cleveland baseball team. One sports fan very reasonably pointed out that the name is “dope” relative to other silly Major League Baseball team names. “There are literally teams named after socks,” he tweeted. A post at Factory of Sadness lays out three reasons the name works, including: "In Guardians, the team has hit a bullseye, in that no one will be offended, while at the same time, keeping a historical element that fans can identity with." (More Cleveland Guardians stories.)