A PETTY GANGSTER PART 2

YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE FOUND TRUMP, unlike movie gangsters, displaying pettiness in many of his actions. We continue this theme today with other verifications, including Trump’s own.

From His Propaganda Arm. Trump even got shirty about the Cleveland Guardians baseball team: He wrote at his propaganda arm (profoundly misnamed Truth Social): “The Owner of the Cleveland Baseball Team, Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three Elections in a row because of that ridiculous name change. What he doesn’t understand is that if he changed the name back to the Cleveland Indians, he might actually win an Election. Indians are being treated very unfairly. MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!”

What?! Or is this just our National Addlepated Uncle ranting again?

Chief Wahoo. Image from Wikipedia.

Facts of the Matter. I haven’t lived in Cleveland for years, but can research the facts: Team symbol Chief Wahoo retired from uniforms following the 2018 season as an offensive Native American caricature. 

Also described in Case Western Reserve’s Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, “In December 2020, team CEO and Chairman Paul Dolan [note: not Matt] announced the club would move to change the team’s name from Indians due to its offensive nature within the next few seasons…. In 2021, the team announced that it was being renamed as the Cleveland Guardians, in a reference to the HOPE MEMORIAL BRIDGE that stands just outside Progressive Field. The new name appeared on uniforms and branded items in the 2022 season.”

So Who Is Matt Dolan? Matt, mentioned in Trump’s diatribe, is Paul’s younger brother. Wikipedia says that their father, Lawrence J. Dolan, who died in February 2025, had purchased the Cleveland Indians baseball team in 2000. Wikipedia notes that these days, “the MLB reported that Paul was ‘the only one of’ Larry J. Dolan’s ‘six children to be that closely involved in the baseball team.’ ” 

Not that I’d expect Truth Social to display any truth.

Possibly TMI. Just ’ween you and me, Cleveland “Guardians” isn’t nearly as meaningful a moniker as Washington “Commanders.” Plus, when I was a kid there, that span over the Cuyahoga was the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge, prosaically named for the avenues it connected. Its renaming in 1984 was in honor of Bob Hope’s father, a Cleveland stonemason. (Bob’s apocryphal attendance at my alma mater, the city’s East High School, is more difficult to confirm than his dad’s occupation.)

The original lakefront Cleveland Stadium got renamed Jacobs Field in 1994 and then got its Progressive moniker when that insurance company bought naming rights in 2008. And again, just ’tween you and me, I’m surprised MAGA types haven’t got nerdy about the woke er… word Progressive. 

Getting Even With Media. Trump’s squabbles with the media are rich with pettiness: There’s “On Trump—Of All People?!—Controlling the English Language,” here at SimanaitisSays, including the Associated Press lockout over the Gulf of Mexico. And “Trump White House Removes WSJ From Scotland Trip Press Pool Over Epstein Report,” CNN, July 21, 2005, in retaliation for its writing about Trump’s salacious art work.

 Pettiness Continues. Other examples abound, typically flexing petty retribution involving anything to do with D.E.I. 

Do you remember when the words Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion weren’t pejoratives? I surely do.

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025