The Braves are not alone in pro sports; the NFL has the Kansas City Chiefs, whose fans also do the chop. But baseball, both inside and outside Atlanta, has ceded ground in the debate. As it evaluated its name, Cleveland canvassed Native Americans and found “the name can make it especially challenging for children to find a place for their Native identity in the community around them.” In 2019, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that seeing the tomahawk chop was “disappointing.”
From the archives: Cardinals pitcher calls Braves’ tomahawk chop ‘disappointing’ and ‘disrespectful’
“I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general,” Helsley said during the Cardinals’ National League Division Series matchup with the Braves that year. “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 how we’re perceived in that way or used as mascots.”
— Read on www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/10/28/braves-chop-world-series-atlanta/