Blue Jays Announcer Jerry Howarth Won't Say "Indians" During ALCS

There's going to be a whole lot of passion on both sides of the 2016 American League Championship Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Cleveland Indians. The Jays are only one year removed from a two-decade playoff drought, and haven't won a pennant since 1993. Cleveland has been to the World Series more recently (1995 and 1997) but haven't won a title since 1948.

Longtime Blue Jays radio play-by-play man Jerry Howarth won't even say the name of Toronto's opponent during the series, though his reasoning has nothing to with baseball. Instead, he is taking a principled stance against using the name "Indians."

Howarth explained his stance on the Jeff Blair radio show Tuesday, saying that he has tried to refrain from using Native American team names since receiving a letter from a First Nations listener from Northern Ontario following the Jays' 1992 World Series triumph over the Atlanta Braves: "Jerry," he recalled the man writing, "I appreciate your work, but in the World Series, it was so offensive to have the tomahawk chop and to have people talk about the 'powwows on the mound' and then the Cleveland Indians logo and the Washington Redskins."

"He just wrote it in such a loving, kind way," Howarth added. "He said, 'I would really appreciate it if you would think about what you say with those teams.'"

He told Blair that he will not use the nicknames for either of the Atlanta or Cleveland franchises, and would do the same for Washington if he covered the NFL.

Howarth has been the voice of the Blue Jays since 1981. Born in York, Pennsylvania, and raised in San Francisco, he became a Canadian citizen in 1994.

[SI.com]