STRIKE ZONE: CORRECT OR NOT, SHEER STUPIDITY IS A SHAME

If we were grouped into the last roundup -- the big drive to that field in the sky -- right this very minute, no doubt we'd be divided into two corrals.

1. The watch-what-you-say eye-catchers of political correctness (i.e. politicians, employed talk show hosts, career salesmen, local morning DJs).

2. The duh-I-don't-care-what-you-think icons (i.e. pro basketball players, Bobby Knight, Julia Roberts -- before the Lyle Lovett divorce.)

Then there are the just-plain-stupid ones, the same kind that don't have the sense to come into the corral when it's raining.

The same ones who get dressed up in warpaint, a headdress and moccasins, and do a tomahawk chop at ballgames.

They still haven't figured it all out.

Push aside the fact that Native American groups spent their World Series time in front of the ballpark, protesting the use of Cleveland's Indians mascot and Atlanta's Braves mascot.

Forget the prospect of public outcry that would crush a team called the Detroit Blackskins, the Miami Refugees, or 'Bama Klansmen.

Wipe all that off the slate.

Think of it this way: To dress up like a race of people, do some sort of showy tribal war dance and make `whooping' noises is humiliating -- not just to the people being portrayed, but equally to those doing it.

Remember those shirtless fat guys that always pop up at NFL games in December? Surely you remember: They're the ones that always have a beer in one hand and binoculars in the other, their knees covered up by a pale, hairy, poochy stomach.

Why are they on TV? Certainly not for ratings. Probably not to make their mothers proud.

Why? Because America loves watching people do stupid things we wouldn't do (see America's Funniest Home Videos).

Even that idiotic war dance some Indian-esque mascot inevitably tries to mimic at a game is entertaining, if only for the sheer idiocy of the performer.

The ethnic group portrayed probably aren't as amused.

At least two major newspapers -- one in Portland, the other in Minneapolis -- won't print mascot names like Indians, Tribe, Braves, and others. Plenty of universities and high schools have dropped Indian names and adopted something less likely to offend.

It's ironic, but those who do the offending probably don't mean to rile anybody.

Even the teams probably never thought picking such a mascot would bother anybody.

To some degree, maybe it shouldn't.

Maybe it's not so much the words "Redskin" being tagged to a pro football team, or "Indians" being used as a college mascot.

Even the demands that teams change their mascots completely may be an extreme.

But there's still that whole let's-act-like-an-Indian thing. The chopping. The whooping. The wardrobe.

At least show some respect for all the races.

Jamie Hall is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.