(Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)

During the Indians-Rays Wild Card matchup in Cleveland on Wednesday, the TBS broadcast cut to a group of fans dressed up like the Indians mascot, Chief Wahoo. The red-faced fans are a bit icky at best, downright offensive at worst.

The appropriation of Native American imagery for sports mascots has become a hot-button issue of late, with most of the focus settling on the Washington Redskins.

Chief Wahoo’s more of a caricature, which kind of makes it even worse. It’s easy to forget that the red-faced cartoon on the Indians cap aims to represent a living, breathing group of human beings, at least until living, breathing human beings dress up like the cartoon.

And if you want to excuse the fans for simply showing their enthusiasm for their favorite club by dressing up as its mascot, it becomes very difficult to defend the mascot when you see the end result.

Complicating matters further is that Cleveland brass encouraged fans to “Rock Your Red” for the game. This probably wasn’t what they intended, though.