Atlanta Braves to Move to County Named After an Advocate of Ethnic Cleansing

Former Braves mascot Chief Noc-A-Homa // Getty Images

Yesterday, the Braves announced their move from downtown Atlanta to Cobb County, named for former U.S. Senator Thomas W. Cobb. And presumably the Braves didn't look up the history of the area -- or really care -- because a Native American-themed team moving to a county named for Cobb is really ironic. From the book The Removal of the Choctaw Indians by Arthur H. Derosier Jr. we get this note about Cobb's legislative record:

Sure, it's not unusual for a Southern Senator of the day to advocate something as horrific as "total Indian removal." But the Braves, a team which shamelessly uses American Indian culture as a marketing tool, moving to a county constituted from stolen Native land and named for a man who advocated stealing it, would probably be rejected as too on-the-nose for most movie scripts.

target="_blank">Atlantans gather for their daily crude imitation