The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. They are in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since they have played in Progressive Field (formerly Jacobs Field). The team's spring training facility is in Winter Haven, Florida, but will move to Goodyear, Arizona in 2009. Since their establishment in 1901, the Indians have won two World Series championships, in 1920 and 1948.

The "Indians" name originates from a request by the club owner to decide a new name, following the 1914 season. In reference to the Boston Braves (now the Atlanta Braves), the media chose "the Indians". They are nicknamed "the Tribe" and "the Wahoos". The latter is a reference to the mascot which appears in the team's logos, Chief Wahoo. The club nickname and its cartoon logo have been criticized for perpetuating Indian stereotypes. In 1997, during the team's most recent World Series appearance, three Indian protesters were arrested, but later acquitted.

One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Cleveland in . The team actually began play in 1900 as the Lake Shores, when the AL was officially a minor league. Then called the Cleveland Blues, the team played in League Park until moving permanently to Cleveland Municipal Stadium in . At the end of the 2008 season, they have an all-time franchise record of 8,557–8,178 (.511). The Indians' most recent postseason visit came in 2007 when they won their 7th AL Central title, the most in the division.

Forest City club

Open professional baseball began in Cleveland during the 1869 season and one team was hired on salary for 1870, as in several other cities following the success of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first fully professional team. That leading Cleveland baseball club was the Forest City, a nickname of the city itself. In the newspapers before and after 1870, the team was often called the Forest Citys, in the same generic way that the team from Chicago was sometimes called The Chicagos. The Forest City club was formed about 1865, when baseball club organization and "national" association membership boomed following the Civil War.

In 1871 the Forest Citys joined the new National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, the first professional league, as did the Forest Citys of Rockford, Illinois. New York and Philadelphia had been the home cities of most top baseball clubs before the league era, but only one club from each joined the professional National Association, whose nine-city circuit was made up by four western clubs and eastern rivals in Washington, D.C., Troy, New York and Boston. Ultimately, two of the western clubs went out of business during the first season and the Chicago Fire left that city's White Stockings impoverished, unable to field a team again until 1874. Cleveland was thus the NA's western outpost in 1872 and the Forest City's failed, playing a full schedule to July 19 followed only by two games versus Boston in mid-August.