Last Friday, Ryan Helsley could have said nothing.

A 25-year-old rookie pitcher in the relief rotation for the St. Louis Cardinals, Helsley is currently playing in his first-ever Major League Baseball playoff series, against the Atlanta Braves. After the Cardinals claimed Game 1 last Thursday night in Atlanta, Helsley could have put his head down and just receded into the background. He didn’t, and thank goodness for it.

Helsley is a citizen of Cherokee Nation, and after witnessing the Atlanta home crowd’s infamous tomahawk chop and chant up close—in which fans raise their elbows up and chop their arms down while imitating a made-up Native war chant—he told the St. Louis Dispatch exactly how he felt watching the fans pretend to be their imagined version of him and other Natives.



“I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general,” Helsley said. “Just depicts them in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual. They are a lot more than that. It’s not me being offended by the whole mascot thing. It’s not. It’s about the misconception of us, the Native Americans, and it devalues us and how we’re perceived in that way, or used as mascots. The Redskins and stuff like that... That’s the disappointing part. That stuff like this still goes on. It’s just disrespectful, I think.”

The Braves, in response, voiced their concern. On Saturday, the team released a statement claiming that it is taking Helsley’s concerns “seriously,” adding that it will “continue to evaluate how we activate elements of our brand.” It was a say-nothing series of words, clearly forced into being by the simple fact that it’s a bad look to have a Native person on an opposing team, in the playoffs, call them out for their foot-dragging. Just this past spring, the Braves, supposedly in the middle of undefined efforts to curtail their fans’ continued use of the motion and chant at home games, designed, printed, and sold t-shirts in the official team store that featured basic instructions for fans on how to do the tomahawk chop. Given the fact that this feat of fandom barely requires instructions—just show up and follow along with the crowd—it was hardly an accidental branding decision.