Just hours before they were set to face the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre, an Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that the Cleveland Indians can use its controversial name and logo.

A legal challenge against the Cleveland Indians, Major League Baseball and Rogers Communications by indigenous activist Douglas Cardinal was heard on Monday shortly before the baseball teams were set to take the field for Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

Judge Tom McEwen said reasons for his decision will come in a written statement, but noted that the decision had to be taken quickly given the game’s opening pitch is set for 8 p.m. tonight.

Michael Swinwood, one of Cardinal’s lawyers, told reporters outside the courtroom that he was disappointed in the decision, but still considers the outcome a win.

“The win is all of you people standing here and having heard these arguments, having raised the issue,” Swinwood said.

Swinwood said his client chose to bring his case forward now because of the crises of suicide and violence in many indigenous communities and media attention this court challenge would bring to the issues of stereotyping and reconciliation.

“The issue of the logo and the name touches upon the racism that lies beneath the surface in the relationship between the dominant society and the indigenous peoples,” he said.

Cardinal also has a complaint against the Cleveland team before the Ontario and Canadian human rights tribunals that Swinwood said his client has every intention of pursuing.

In packed courtroom on Monday, Cardinal’s lawyers argued that the Cleveland team’s name and logo are derogatory, and their use subject Cardinal — an indigenous man — to unjust discrimination.

Lawyer Monique Jilesen, who helped argued Cardinal’s case, said if there was a similarly cartoonish image of Jews, blacks or Muslims no one would be OK with that.

An opposing lawyer at one point argued that “Indian” isn’t a derogatory word at all, that it speaks to history and tradition despite outcries against it from many in indigenous communities. Lawyers for Rogers also argued that Cardinal has regularly described himself as an Indian in the media; further, they told the judge that Cardinal is currently in China, far from where Rogers broadcasts.

Signa Duam Shanks, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, said she is unaware of any legal precedent for a case like this, but there are plenty of social precedents.

Schools, minor sports teams and other organizations with mascots have often changed their logos or names in recent years, likely on the advice of legal experts hoping to avoid the mess that Cleveland now finds itself in, she said.

“There is social precedent. When we think of in particular the work public schools have done in Canada about not having (an offensive) mascot anymore, I would be very surprised if they weren’t concerned about legal issues,” she said.

In 2014 the Nepean Eagles youth football team changed their team name from “Redskins” amid public pressure, including from indigenous musicians A Tribe Called Red.

“The club understands that the current name is offensive to some, and thus divisive to our community,” said team president Steve Dean in a media release at the time.

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The injunction against the Cleveland team is the latest round in an ongoing row over the team’s name, which has seen everyone from local chiefs, to the city’s mayor and the province’s premier calling for the logo and name to be changed.

Toronto Mayor John Tory, who formerly served as the commissioner of the Canadian Football League, said it’s also time for the Edmonton Eskimos to change their name, for similar reasons.

“The people who have to step up first are the ones that actually own these franchises and say ‘You know what, we recognize times have changed, we recognize it’s 2016 and these kinds of things can’t really be defended anymore on the basis of tradition,’ ” Tory told reporters Monday.

Ontario Attorney General Nasir Yaqvi said he could not speak to the court case, but told reporters at Queen’s Park that he personally has “never favoured team names that use cultural stereotypes.”

“As a society, we are starting to speak more and more on that, and I think that’s a good thing . . . That’s a very important conversation and it is very much part of the reconciliation journey that we are on right now as a result of the work that was done by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” Naqvi said.

Rogers also owns the Blue Jays and the stadium they play in, the Rogers Centre.

The Indians’ logo, dubbed Chief Wahoo, is a cartoon man with red skin and a feather in his headband.

Cardinal’s representatives say team members shouldn’t be allowed to wear their regular jerseys, the logo shouldn’t be broadcast and the team should be referred to as “the Cleveland team.”

Cleveland leads Toronto in the playoff series 2-0 going into Monday night’s match.

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